LiBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf ...i.QjJ f) C 

rfA2- 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The American Girl 
AT College 



T 



HE American Girl 
AT College, by 
LiDA Rose McCabe 







NEW YORK 

DoDD, Mead & Compa 

1893 



OMPANY \y 



( 






V 



Copyright, 1893 
By DODD, mead & COMPANY 



All rights reserved 



TO 

MY FATHER 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. — Higher Education, 
II, — Physical Development, 
III. — Esthetic Culture, 
IV. — Social Life, . . 
v.— Scholarships and Fellowships, 
VI. — America to Japan, . ^ 

VIL — Higher Specialised Work, 
VIII, — Presidential Silhouettes. 
IX. — Co-education, 
X. — Relative Cost, 
XI. — Self-Help, 
XII. — Practical Outcome, 



PAGE 

I 

15 
26 

45 
62 

75 
86 

95 
106 
121 
141 
153 



XIII.— The Association of Collegiate 

Alumna, . . • - .181 
vii 



\ 



''All the adventures of knights will 
not prome one lady's valour. She must 
fight her o:wn battles, " 



PREFACE 

A BOOK with an apology rarely has 
excuse for being. Conscious, however, of 
the interest and importance of the sub- 
jects here treated, I feel it due to the 
colleges mentioned in these pages to 
state that the volume is the outcome of a 
flying visit to the woman's colleges of 
New England and the South. 

The topics discussed are attracting the 
attention of scholars and educators, some 
of whom were pleased to discover in my 
homely discussion of them information 
valuable to the American family and 
kindly urged their presentation in a more 
permanent and desirable form than the 
ephemeral newspaper. Written within the 
limitations of journalism, they do not 

xi 



Preface 

invite technical consideration and are no 
more than what they aimed to be — facts 
garnered from personal observation and 
authentic sources. 

If a college girl gleans a practical hint, 
the future historian a suggestion by the 
perusal of this humble little volume, it 
will not have been " Love's Labour Lost/' 

LiDA Rose McCabe. 

New York, May 15th, 1893. 
xii 



The American Girl at College 



CHAPTER I 



HIGHER EDUCATION 



THE higher education of woman has 
ceased to be a conundrum. Wo- 
man has solved it. Statistics refute 
ahiiost every objection raised against her 
highest intellectual development. Wit- 
ness the scholastic standing of the four 
great women colleges of the United States. 
The standard is equal if not higher than 
that of the average man's college, which 
proves that only earnest workers aspire 
as yet to collegiate training. 

There are indications, however, that 
higher education may develop into a fad. 
In such a crisis, doubtless, feminine dul- 
lards will be coached to college and to a 



The American Girl at Collet<e 



lower scholastic standard, as are the mas- 
culine drones infesting our great insti- 
tutions. Certain is the wide-spreading 
popularity of collegiate training for wo- 
man. More than three thousand students 
were enrolled the past year at Vassar, 
Smith, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr. Last 
year some two hundred degrees were con- 
ferred. Mt. Holyoke — the pioneer in 
higher education — chartered a college in 
iS88, and the Woman's College of Balti- 
more — the first in the South — conferred 
in 1892 degrees on their first graduates. 
The class at the former numbered ten, 
while the Woman's College had five 
graduates. In equipment it is one of the 
educational marvels of the South. 

Harvard Annex, unique in educational 
development, rounded its twelfth year 
with flattering results, conferring the Har- 
vard certificate, the equivalent to a Har- 
vard College degree, on nine women. 

Barnard College or the Columbia Annex 
is about to send its first graduates, eight 
women, to receive from the President of 
the University the same degrees which 



Higher Education 



are conferred upon men, as the reward of 
advanced scholarship. The founding of 
Barnard accentuates an epoch in the 
higher education of women. No other 
affiUated college of the non-co-educational 
institution is recognised so honourably as 
an essential part of the university proper; 
no other commands so great generosity 
in degrees. 

The quota of women at the great co- 
educational colleges is constantly increas- 
ing, while Yale, Johns Hopkins, and the 
Universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago 
now offer her equal privileges. Room, 
more room, is the cry of every woman's 
college, while the number following post- 
graduate courses increases yearly, sub- 
stantiating the assertion of their precep- 
tors that woman's colleges are founded on 
the old Hellenic idea: " Culture for cul- 
ture's sake." 

When it is recalled that at the close of 
the Revolution many ladies of high stand- 
ing in Boston could not read, that wives 
of distinguished men signed deeds with a 
cross, that a girl instructed by a master 



The American Girl at College 



was unheard of, and to be permitted to 
hang on the doorsteps of country schools 
to hear the boys recite was deemed a 
privilege, well may we exclaim with the 
President of Smith's College, "Woman's 
intellectual awaking is like a dream!" 

But what is the drift of this much-talked- 
of higher education ? What is the differ- 
ence between. common schools, colleges 
and universities, and of what value are 
degrees to women, is a question that 
old-fashioned, home-keeping women find 
themselves asking their sisters in " the 
swim." A college presupposes a knowl- 
edge of the common branches essential to 
intelligent and successful performance of 
any business or to a proper discharge of 
the duties of common life. A college 
does not train a student in law, medicine, 
theology, agriculture, commerce, art, sci- 
ence or literature. This is the special 
work of universities. Between the com- 
mon school and the university, then, lies 
the college — that higher education which 
aims to impart to women through liberal 
studies the discipline, the culture of the 



Higher Education 



powers of observation, perception, reflec- 
tion — the normal development of a sound 
mind and a good heart in a healthy and 
graceful body — in short, the education of 
the whole woman for the fullest accom- 
plishment of the highest and best work in 
life. To accomplish for young women 
what our colleges are doing for young 
men was the hope of the founder of the 
first woman's college — Matthew Vassar. 
Twenty-five years ago Vassar College 
conferred degrees on its first graduates, 
and in the interval it has enriched the 
home and professional life with more than 
a thousand equipped women. 

The serious work of the " fair Vassar 
girl" in all the higher walks of life has 
silenced the gibes of men's colleges and 
crippled the jingles of the funny man of 
the press. 

Vassar graduated in '92 its largest class 
— fifty-five. A large proportion are now 
teaching. A number married and as- 
sumed social responsibilities at once, 
while others have entered on medical 
studies or are following post-graduate 



The American Girl at College 



courses at Yale, the Chicago or other uni- 
versities. Scarcely an educational insti- 
tution for women in the country is with- 
out a Vassar girl on its Faculty. It 
continues to furnish leading libraries with 
librarians, while journalism and periodic 
literature are enriched by its contributors. 
The reputation of Maria Mitchell is sus- 
tained by her successor. Miss Mary W. 
Whitney. The recent observations of 
the new comet made by Miss Whitney 
and her students were published in the 
Astronomical Joiwnal. Two Vassar girls 
are assistants and computers in the ob- 
servatories at Yale and Harvard. Miss 
Murray, of Harvard, was the first to dis- 
cover the facts which led to Prof. Picker- 
ing's recent theory as to double stars. 

Ten years after the opening of Vas- 
sar, Smith and Wellesley Colleges were 
founded. Their growth is marvellous. 
The cordiality existing between the wo- 
man's colleges, as shown by their supple- 
menting their Faculties by an interchange 
of graduates, is a strikingly wholesome 
feature of this great transitory period. 

6 



Higher Education 



Wellesley was founded by a rubber mer- 
chant of Boston, Mr. Henry F. Durant, 
whose belief in woman's intellectual 
power was early stimulated by the women 
who imparted to him his knowledge of 
the classics. Wellesley is controlled en- 
tirely by women. It contributes largely 
to the missionary fields. Its graduates 
are found in many professions. The col- 
lege has at present 700 students. Many 
of last year's graduates have entered 
upon various bread-winning careers, while 
the increase in post-graduates is marked. 
Wellesley is fully abreast of the times, 
eager to assimilate new ideas and put 
them to practical test. 

Smith College was founded by a woman, 
and the Faculty is divided. It began 
with fourteen students. "We thought," 
said its President, " that if we had one 
hundred in twenty years, great strides 
would have been made. We have now 
650. We can't accommodate the num- 
bers demanding quarters on the campus." 
Smith in '92 conferred degrees on eighty- 
one graduates. 



The American Girl at College 



The Sophomore year at Smith's is 
known as the matrimonial epoch. Many 
students at this term abandon college for 
matrimony. The girl that safely crosses 
the Rubicon may be relied upon as a can- 
didate for a degree. 

Bryn Mawr was founded in 1884 by a 
Quaker and richly endowed. It has prof- 
ited by the experiences of Vassar, Welles- 
ley, and Smith, and combines, scholasti- 
cally and materially, the best that money 
and taste can secure. It opened in 1885 
with 44 students. It has now 166, From 
Johns Hopkins University it borrowed 
the system of major and minor electives 
in fixed combination. Bryn Mawr last 
June conferred the Bachelor degree on 
sixteen women. A number of the class 
of '92 are teaching. The marriage ratio 
of Bryn Mawr is proportionally higher 
than that of Vassar. 

Latest statistics show that college-bred 
women are now marrying more rapidly 
than formerly and at an earlier age, while 
the exceptional scarcity of divorce among 
married college women proves that the 

8 



Higher Education 



costs of matrimony were fully counted 
before the responsibility was assumed. 

Miss Emory, of Maine, last year won 
the European fellowship. This provides 
$500, sufficient for a year's course at an 
English or Continental university. Two 
young women have already profited by 
Bryn Mawr European fellowships. One 
is now engaged in philanthropic work in 
Boston. 

Bryn Mawr girls wear the gown and 
mortar-board. The gown is of black 
nun's veiling, alpaca, or serge. They 
were adopted at first to lessen the expense 
of graduation toilettes. They add dignity 
and picturesqueness to college life. The 
graduates of the Woman's College at 
Baltimore donned the gown and mortar- 
board to receive their degrees, and hence- 
forth it will be their daily costume. 

The adoption of this time-honoured 
garb of foreign universities is a yearly 
mooted question in all our woman's col- 
leges. Wellesley Seniors wear it on Tree 
Day, but as yet Vassar and Smith cling 
to the gowns of the traditional " sweet 



The American Girl at College 



girl graduate." Barnard appears in cap 
and gown, sustaining the unique type of 
college woman. The value of a degree 
to the woman ambitious to teach or enter 
professional life increases yearly. The 
■ scholastic standard of common-school 
teachers will eventually be elevated to 
such a point that only the woman with 
A. B. can hope for position, while the aspi- 
rants for college professorships will find 
Ph.D. imperative! 

A. B. (Bachelor of Arts) is conferred 
by colleges at the successful completion 
of the prescribed course. 

A. M. (Master of Arts) is conferred on 
the college graduate who remains a year 
after graduation to pursue a line of study 
beyond the prescribed course, while Ph. D. 
(Doctor of Philosophy) is the reward of 
extended university study. Fellowships 
— home and foreign — are multiplying in 
all the colleges. 

Examinations for admission to the 
Freshman class of Vassar, Smith, Welles- 
ley, Mt. Holyoke or Baltimore College 
include English History and Mathematics 



lO 



Higher Education 



in addition to Latin, Greek, German or 
French. Certificates duly quahfied by 
the various faculties are generally ac- 
cepted in lieu of the prescribed examina- 
tion. 

The Harvard University examination 
for women held in Cambridge, New York 
and Cincinnati, is the most rigid. Regu- 
lar examination under the Board of Ex- 
aminers of Columbia College, which insists 
upon Greek as a requirement, admits a 
girl to Barnard. The equivalent of the 
Harvard examination, or a certificate of 
honourable dismissal from some college or 
university of acknowledged standing, is 
the passport to Bryn Mawr. All these 
colleges have three regular courses: clas- 
sical, scientific and literary. The first 
leads to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, 
the second to Master of Arts, the trio 
to Doctor of Philosophy. Post-graduate 
and special courses for teachers and ad- 
vanced students are now provided, and 
the requirements for entering and passing 
vary slightly in each. 

Bryn Mawr admits three classes to its 

II 



The American Girl at Colle2:e 



lectures and college work : graduate stu- 
dents, undergraduates and hearers. The 
idea of hearer is essentially English, and 
Bryn Mawr is the only woman college 
that offers this valuable provision. A 
hearer is excused from passing the ma- 
triculation or entrance examination. She 
must be a woman of at least 25 years of 
age, and furnish proof that she has at 
some time pursued the studies included in 
the matriculation examination. Her ad- 
mission to recitations, examinations and 
laboratory work depends solely on the 
consent of the instructor in charge. 
Hearers, unlike special students, are not 
recognised by the college and can receive 
only such certificates of collegiate study 
as may be given them by the several in- 
structors. They cannot receive degrees. 
This is an exceptional opportunity for 
studious, ambitious women debarred in 
early youth from higher educational ad- 
vantages. 

Especially welcome are the hearer's 
privileges to the bread-winner to whom 
experience has brought home her defi- 

12 



Higher Education 



dency in certain lines where proficiency 
would enlarge and facilitate her oppor- 
tunities. Dread or timidity of undergoing 
a matriculation examination has prevented 
many mature women from entering our 
colleges to perfect themselves in a special 
line of study that would secure them 
higher results and increased competency 
in their chosen callings. 

The high standard of scholarship main 
tained by all our women colleges would 
seem to debar the dilettante from aspiring 
to higher education. Should it ever be- 
come " good form" for families to insist 
upon the female dullards entering college, 
the lowering of the average now attained 
would find compensation, perhaps, in the 
avenue it would open to poor, industrious 
girls to pay their way by tutoring the 
rich man's indifferent daughters. It is 
hardly possible that frivolous, indifferent 
girls will ever worry through the higher 
education, yet it cannot be denied that 
to be a college-bred woman is a growing 
ambition. To define the outcome of the 
higher education of women is as impracti- 

13 



The American Girl at College 



cable as would be an exhibit of philan- 
thropic work at the World's Fair. 

" We do not aim to train a woman for 
a sphere, profession or calling, " insist the 
presidents of all our women colleges. 
" We train her simply to be a whole wo- 
man, a power for highest good in any 
community in which her lot may be cast, 
and in no position is her influence so po- 
tent as in the home. When men complete 
the college curriculum they rarely have 
definite ideas of what course they will pur- 
sue. Why should women be expected to 
have definite plans? All must await de- 
velopments, and whatever those develop- 
ments may be the college-bred woman is 
better equipped to meet them." This is 
higher education in a nutshell. 

14 



CHAPTER II 

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT- 

^■p^HE modern college girl, in Turkish 
1 trousers, crosses swords with a 
fencing master, vaults bars, climbs ropes, 
plays ball, rows and swims. Not with 
german favours or progressive euchre 
prizes but with the trophies of gymnasium 
tournaments is her boudoir decorated! 

Eager to grasp all, hold all, our early 
educational system tended to the develop- 
ment of the intellect at the sacrifice of the 
physique. Alarmed at the results, mod- 
ern educators are seeking in the old world 
for a remedy — a remedy that might be 
found at home since our German popula- 
tion brought Vv^ith them the turnverein, to 
which continental universities are largely 
indebted for the preservation of sound 
minds in sound bodies. This general 
awakening to the importance of physical 

15 



The American Girl at College 



in conjunction with mental training 
happily comes, almost simultaneously, 
with the objection advanced against the 
higher education of woman — namely, her 
physical inability to sustain the mental 
strain of collegiate education. This 
charge statistics refute, thanks to the 
eagerness and thoroughness with which 
women's colleges are assimilating hygienic 
and educational physical training. 

Most colleges in the past three years 
have added to their original buildings that 
" centre point of Greek life, " a gymnasium. 

Calisthenics or gymnastics, in a de- 
sultory way, have always been practised 
in girls' schools, but physical training as 
now understood was unknown in all our 
educational institutions until the past 
three years. Not until college authorities 
exact as careful a physical as a scholas- 
tic examination at original entrance will 
physical development attain its rightful 
position in modern education. And this 
will be possible only when its vital impor- 
tance is scientifically recognised in the 
common schools. Vassar, in its earliest 

i6 



Physical Development 



days, had a riding school, and two foreign 
masters of horsemanship initiated the 
fair candidate for a degree into equestrian 
mysteries. To its alumnae association 
Vassar is indebted for its present splen- 
didly equipped gymnasium. It is one of 
the largest buildings for purposes of phys- 
ical exercise connected with any college 
for women. It is controlled by two 
women — a director and a physical ex- 
aminer. A certificate of good health in 
addition to that of good character is now 
being added to the requisites for admission 
to some of our women colleges and co- 
educational institutions. Y- A student will 
not be permitted to study in the Chicago 
University four consecutive terms without 
a physician's certificate, that she may do 
the work of the fourth quarter without in- 
jury to her health. 

Wellesley has yet to secure a separate 
gymnasium building, but one of its 
spacious halls is equipped with the para- 
phernalia demanded by the Sargent sys- 
tem. Smith has a commodious edifice. 
Before equipping it, President Seelye 

17 



The American Girl at College 



visited the gymnasiums of Europe, The 
gymnasium at Bryn Mawr is a beautiful 
structure, while outside of Harvard Col- 
lege perhaps no gymnasium surpasses that 
of the Woman's College at Baltimore. 
It is equipped with Zander machines at 
a cost of eight thousand dollars. The 
Swedish system is closely followed, and 
Dr. Alice Hall Chapman, the most expert 
woman expounder of Ling in this country, 
assisted by two Swedish women, graduates 
of the royal schools of Stockholm, estab- 
lished its reputation. 

The students of Harvard Annex avail 
themselves of Dr. Sargent's women and 
girls' gymnasium at Cambridge, but are 
looking forward to the erection of a sepa- 
rate gymnasium, in addition to their other 
collegiate building. Most of these gym- 
nasiums have race tracks and swim.ming 
tanks. Whether the German, Swedish or 
American (Dr. Sargent's) method is the 
more efficient continues to be the bone of 
contention among physical trainers. The 
colleges are divided in their allegiance. 
Dr. Sargent's system, varied by the 



Physical Development 



Swedish, prevails at Vassar, Wellesley, 
Smith, Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke, 
v/hile the Baltimore college, as has been 
stated, adheres to the Swedish. 

The development of the heart and lungs 
by free movements of the body, is the 
basis of the Swedish system, while muscu- 
lar strength, developed by machine exer- 
cise, is the pivot of Dr. Sargent's method. 
The Germans pay less attention to hygiene 
than the Americans or Swedes, and the 
Swedish system is more educational in 
its tendency. While anatomy, physiology 
and human nature are the same the world 
over, the question of nationality must be 
considered in determining the exercises of 
physical training. 

Eventually a system compatible with 
the best development of American phy- 
sique will be evolved, leading to a race 
like the Greek prototypes. Where could 
it begin more effectively than with the 
mothers of the future? "It is because 
few persons nowadays have faultless 
constitutions and few families are al- 
together free from some tendency to 

IQ 



The American Girl at College 



disease," says an English physician, " tha- 
one needs to be more careful of the 
mothers of the next generation." At 
some women's colleges systematic physi- 
cal training is obligatory, while at others 
it is optional. Not until it becomes 
obligatory can the student hope to reach 
her true estate and physical culture its 
proper recognition. Out of a class of 104 
young women who graduated at Wellesley 
in 1891, only two had been in the habit of 
taking out-door exercise for two hours 
every day, w^hile eight did not average one 
hour, or one and a half, daily. Forty-five 
averaged about one hour a day, and the 
remaining forty-nine, less than one hour. 
Since the autumn of 1891, however, physi- 
cal training at Wellesley has been recog- 
nised as a full regular department of the 
college. Three hours' instruction a week 
in the gymnasium is now required of every 
member of the freshman class. The re- 
sults of a year and a half of the experi- 
ment have been most satisfactory, not 
only in the development of physique, 
improvement in the carriage and vigour 



20 



Physical Development 



of the young women, but also in the in- 
creased capacity for mental application. 
Each student at all the colleges whether 
the system be that of Ling or of Sargent, 
is measured, a chart drawn defining physi- 
cal deviations from accepted normal de- 
velopment, and exercises are prescribed 
to counteract existing defects. From time 
to time measurements are taken, and a 
record kept showing the progress made. 
The records of one hundred cases at the 
Baltimore college last year revealed a 
chest development of from one to five 
inches. It was noticeable in women past 
forty years of age; for so justly cele- 
brated has this gymnasium become that 
physicians send patients there for treat- 
ment. The effect of scientific hygienic 
training, say the presidents of these col- 
leges, is strikingly apparent in the con- 
dition of the girls at the completion of 
the four years as compared with their 
condition on entering the college. Illness 
is rare. All colleges have resident women 
physicians, who may be consulted daily in 
their 'offices without charge, or may be 



21 



The American Girl at College 



summoned to the student's chamber at a 
nominal cost. The physician also gives 
familiar lectures on hygiene and instruc- 
tion in physiology and anatomy. Black 
Turkish trousers with divided skirt effect, 
blouse waists with sailor knots of varied 
hue at the throat, black stockings and 
heelless Oxford ties complete the gym- 
nasium costume. A pretty girl in this 
Oriental garb is very attractive. Much 
diffidence was manifested in donning the 
trousers at first, an I the unexpected ap- 
pearance of Mark Twain in the gym- 
nasium at Bryn Mawr, when a class was 
exercising, brought every girl instanta- 
neously to her knees! 

Work in the gymnasium closes in April, 
and then the college girl devotes her- 
self to the swimming tank, rowing and 
lawn tennis. Vassar has ten lawn tennis 
courts. Rowing on the Hudson is op- 
tional. Sketching classes, botanical and 
geological excursions necessitate much 
out-door life, while every student is 
obliged to spend one hour a day in the 
open air. One-third of the students at 



22 



Physical Development 



Harvard Annex avail themselves of the 
gymnasium. 

Wellesley has extensive tennis courts, 
and many students spin over th^ lovely 
countryside on bicycles. Wellesley is the 
only college with an organised crew. 
Rowing is scientifically taught by Harvig 
Nissen, a Swede. Classes in rowing are 
taught every day, the beautiful lake on 
the college grounds offering secluded fa- 
cilities. Float day in June is the most 
picturesque fete in the college's long 
calendar. The lake, ensconced in wooded 
hills, is flecked with boats manned by 
natty crews in clover and white flannel 
outing suits. Greek letters are embroid- 
ered on the white shirt fronts, and the 
health-glowing faces of the rowers beam 
under the jaunty clover caps, with nauti- 
cal bands of white silk, as the boats dart 
from the moorings amid the cheers of 
invited guests gathered on the hillside. 
Chinese lanterns shed soft lights among 
the trees as twilight deepens and the 
victors land to receive the trophies — rib- 
bon banners, gay with college colours. 



The American Girl at College 



Smith has no boating crew but her 
swimming tank is spacicus. To tennis 
players, however, Smith adds the first 
and only ball team. 

"Are you not afraid that ball playing 
will make the girls masculine?" asked a 
solicitous citizen of Northampton. 

" Have you ever seen them bat a ball ?" 
slyly asked the president. 

"No, sir, I never have." 

" Ah, I thought so. If you had, be- 
lieve me, your fears would be allayed." 

Bryn Mawr has a cricket club. It was 
the first to establish a tennis tournament. 
These contests have greatly raised the 
standard of tennis playing. It offers 
prizes for feats in the gymnasium, vault- 
ing, club swinging, etc. The stimulus 
given by its tournament suggested to 
Bryn Mawr girls the feasibility of or- 
ganising women colleges into an In- 
tercollegiate Athletic Association. An 
invitation accordingly was sent out last 
year, and repeated this, but found no en- 
couraging response. 

Vassar, shrinking from the publicity 

24 



Physical Develpoment 



given to all its movements, the penalty of 
pioneership, dreaded anything that might 
attract public attention still more, and 
other colleges, while recognising the 
value of contest, are not yet ready to give 
allegiance. But a Woman's Intercolle- 
giate Athletic Association cannot fail to 
bring physical training to a high degree 
of perfection, and its realisation is not far 
distant. 

To the average college woman the idea 
as yet is too suggestive of the race course, 
grand stand, bill posters and exposure to 
the rabble, from which, let us hope, the 
American girl will always be defended. 

25 



CHAPTER III 

ESTHETIC CULTURE 

1 NSTRUCTIVE, suggestive and refresh- 
1 ing is the aesthetic outlet which 
women's colleges find in dramatic and 
musical organisations. Unhampered by 
the professors of elocution or music and 
mildly approved by the faculty, the 
students with dramatic or musical taste 
instinctively combine to give in a recre- 
ative way free scope to individual taste or 
talent. The versatility and quality of 
talent thus revealed are often truly re- 
markable. Not only in the portrayal of 
character, in elocutionary effect, in stage 
setting and costuming are ingenuity and 
keen dramatic instinct discernible, but the 
constructive faculty is often strikingly 
apparent in the cleverness with which 
students adapt plays, frequently producing 
original dramas worthy of public ren- 

26 



y^sthetic Culture 



dition. It is not improbable that a Vas- 
sar, Smith, Wellesley, or Bryn Mawr girl 
may yet produce the long-expected 
American drama. The wonder is that 
they have not already entered seriously 
the field of dramatic writing or histrionic 
art. It is but a question of time and 
growth. Did not Clyde Fitch, one of the 
most promising of our young playwrights, 
get his first insight into stagecraft at 
Amherst College? Judging by the ad- 
vances made in these directions as shown 
by the dramatic and musical performances 
of the past year, the time is near at hand 
when some college-bred girl will produce, 
let us hope a drama, which will effectively 
belie Molly Eliot Seawell's assertion, that 
"Woman has no creative faculty." 

The " social v/e" of the Vassar girl has 
many sides, and not the least interesting 
is her adoration of Apollo and Thalia. 
In the college's tentative days a friend 
presented the dramatic society with five 
sets of scenery. With this nucleus the 
properties have grown until Vassar could 
take to the road to-day, better equipped 

27 



The American Girl at College 



than many professional companies. Four 
plays are given each year. The birth of 
the drama in college life has been the 
outcome of the desire of the seniors to 
improve themselves and to entertain the 
younger classes. The sophomores wel- 
come the freshmen by " tearing a passion 
to tatters," and not to be outdone, the 
latter return the compliment, each strug- 
gling to excel the other in setting and 
rendition as well as the weaving in of col- 
lege jokes. The students usually make 
their own costumes. On special occa- 
sions, when elaborate court trappings are 
required. New York costumers are sought. 
Clever scenery is improvised, and great is 
the fun when special setting which the 
property-room fails to supply is required ; 
for then the dramatis personae don huge 
calico aprons, and, with brush and paint 
pot, set to work to conjure from the un- 
suspecting canvas " scenes wonderful to 
behold." Here the theories inculcated 
by the recently abolished Vassar School 
of Painting find practical expression. 
Professorships are not established in 

28 



i^sthetic Culture 



painting and music, but instruction in the 
history, theory and practice of both arts 
is given as before. History and theory 
are however in the regular collegiate 
course, and count toward a baccalaureate 
degree. Practice is an extra expense and 
does not count for a degree. The pur- 
pose of the change is to give aesthetic 
culture its true place in higher education. 
In the art gallery of Vassar the oldest 
American artist, Watson, is represented, 
together with the works of Trumbull, 
Mount, Cole, Durand, Gifford, Kensett, 
Edwin White and Baker. Later American 
art is exemplified by Inness, Boughton, 
Huntington, McEntee, Whittridge, Shat- 
tuck and Gignou, and foreign art by Diaz, 
Courbet, L' Enfant de Metz and Duvergne. 
In water colour the gallery glories in 
four Turners, two Pivicts, one Copley and 
Fielding, two Stanfields and others of 
lesser note. Equally rich is the Hall of 
Casts. The Art Fund of Vassar provides 
for annual additions to the Gallery. 

But to return to the drama: Mascu- 
line costumes are forbidden in Vassar 

29 



The American Girl at College 



plays; that is, legitimate trousers are es- 
chewed; coats and vests are permissible, 
but the divided skirt marks the limit of 
realism! The plays are given in the 
gymnasium, equipped with stage, foot- 
lights and movable scenery. A beautiful 
blue plush drop curtain is Vassar's pride. 
It was secured at the cost of many ?. 
struggle in the way of benefits. The 
entertainments are generally complimen- 
tary; occasionally, however, a small ad- 
mission is asked for the benefit of some 
particular cause. Men are never ad- 
mitted to any of these performances, 
and this restriction prohibits an orchestra. 
While Vassar has given Shakspearian 
plays, i't confines itself chiefly to modern 
comedies. Less adaptation and original 
work is done here than at other colleges. 
" She Stoops to Conquer," " Our American 
Cousin," and "The Rivals" have had 
clever treatment. 

The Vassar girl does not hesitate to 
penetrate the sanctum of Messrs. Frohman 
and Daly in quest of manuscript plays. 
"Are they refused?" Privileged women! 



30 



./Esthetic Culture 



The manuscripts of several of the clever- 
est comedies of these managers have found 
their way to Vassar. Last year " The 
Cricket on the Hearth," "A Scrap of 
Paper," "Lord Dundreary," and "Lulu" 
were given with artistic effect. This 
spring Mr. Crane sent the Vassar girls the 
manuscript of " On Probation" and it was 
the regret of the accomplished comedian 
that he could not see their interpretation 
of his latest creation. 

Vassar has just made her debnt in 
classic domain and crowned her histrionic 
efforts by a rendition of " Antigone" in 
the original Greek. Since the days of 
Sophocles perhaps the world has not seen 
a more accurate setting of a Greek play. 
The master mind of the undertaking was 
Miss Abbey Leach, Professor of the Greek 
Department. Discarding traditional ideas 
of Greek art and drama Vassar present- 
ed " Antigone" in strict accordance with 
the discoveries made at Athens in the 
past five years. Professor Leach, in her 
heroic effort to be true to the classic 
purity of Sophocles, sacrificed what is 

31 



The American Girl at College 



known as the " dramatic essentials. " She 
summoned to her aid the Greek professors 
of Harvard, Amherst and various other 
colleges. One renowned expert drilled 
the cast in rhythm of the Greek verse; 
another instructed it in intonation and 
expression; while another propounded the 
meaning of Sophocles. Perfect in the 
lines as erudite Greek professorship could 
make them, the cast was then turned over 
to Professor Franklin H. Sargent, of the 
American Academy of Dramatic Arts. 
" It was interesting to watch as rehearsals 
progressed the triumph of mind over 
matter," said Professor Sargent in speak- 
ing of the educational benefits to be 
derived from the training involved in a 
Greek play, " their finely disciplined 
minds yielded like plastic clay. They 
grasped every suggestion and responded 
effectively." As a scholastic no less than 
an artistic feat *' Antigone" created an 
epoch and arrested the attention of the 
educational and dramatic world, while it 
demonstrated the strength of the Greek 
department of the college. 

32 



y^sthetic Culture 



The College Alumnae include one pro- 
fessional actress. 

The Glee Club, under the direction of 
Miss * Perkins of California, scored a 
triumph recently in a concert given at 
Sherry's in New York to found a scholar- 
ship. It gives a number of recitals during 
the year, often with the Banjo Club, 
which numbers eight clever performers. 
These organisations in all colleges are 
independent of the schools of music 
proper. They elect their own leaders, 
select their music and drill themselves. 
Each year generally brings a sufficient 
number of singers or banjo players to 
make a club quorum. 

Greater attention is given to legitimate 
drama at Smith, perhaps, than at any 
college in the country. It has four 
dramatic societies. Plays were originally 
given in the parlours of the various cot- 
tages; but with the growth of talent and 
interest they sought the Town Hall. 
The seniors' play at the close of the year 
is the crowning feature of the commence- 
ment week. It is the only play to which 

33 



The American Girl at College 



gentlemen are admitted. , The girls make 
their own costumes, but masculine attire 
terminates at the waist line. 

The seniors of '92 gave the " Colombe's 
Birthday," of Robert Browning. In '91 
the students dramatised the " Book of 
Job." A chorus represented the com- 
forters. The music was written by Prof. 
Blodgett, who ably conducts the music 
schools of Smith, Wellesley and Mt. 
Holyoke. The costumes were historically 
correct and the whole impressive. A 
tuneful operetta, set to college jokes, was 
written by one of the students, who gave 
promise of doing something meritorious in 
operatic writing. 

" What has become of her ?" was asked. 

" Oh, she taught school for a while, and 
now she is keeping house for her brother." 

To successfully keep house for any- 
body certainly demands the constructive 
faculty, but as my informant naively 
remarked: — "It doesn't sound very big." 

The success of " Electra, " ,the Greek 
play given in the original at Smith three 
years ago, attracted wide attention and 

34 



i^sthetic Culture 



demonstrated the proficiency of its Greek 
department. Its setting was elaborate. 
The beautiful Greek costumes were made 
by a professional costumer. Prof. Tyler 
trained each girl in her Greek lines. The 
whole was a classic novelty that arrested 
the attention of the collegiate world. 
Harvard and Yale came to Smith 'as 
guests, and their professors praised highly 
the perfection and fluency of the girls' 
Greek lines. It was a revelation. Smith's 
reputation was established, and succeed- 
ing classes struggle to maintain or surpass 
the dramatic laurels then so signally won. 

The glee club gave recently a Thanks- 
giving concert in New York under the 
auspices of the college alumnae for the 
benefit of the gymnasium. 

Minor plays are also presented, in which 
the students are their own stage managers, 
electricians, stage carpenters, scenic paint- 
ers, etc. ; and, from the practical as well 
as the literary insight and exercise gained, 
something substantial in the way of origi- 
nal play-writing ought eventually to result. 

Smith has separate schools of art and 

35 



The American Girl at College 



music whose gallery, lectures, public con- 
certs and recitals all regular students of 
the college may attend without extra 
charge. Its art gallery has probably the 
most representative collection of the 
American School, while more complete 
copies of antique casts are not to be had 
in any of the woman's colleges. How 
the college came to possess Hillyer Art 
Gallery is not without interest. To the 
staid villagers of Northampton the tall 
gaunt figure of Winthrop Hillyer was as 
familiar as the campus of Smith. A quiet, 
unobtrusive soul, his humble bachelor 
quarters comprised one room over the 
village butcher shop. His outer life was 
an open book, but the inner was sealed to 
every one. The President of Smith was 
surprised to receive a visit in his study 
several years ago from this village recluse. 

" I hear that you want an art gallery," 
said the old man. " I have called to say 
that it would give me pleasure to supply 
that want." 

The President was inclined to believe 
the old man daft. His visitor had never 

36 



Esthetic Culture 



been suspected of being a man of wealth 
or a lover of art. That Northampton was 
deceived, the splendid Hillyer Art Gal- 
lery, with its studio and exhibition rooms, 
extensive collection of casts and paintings, 
and its endowment of fifty thousand dol- 
lars for the increase of the collection, 
eloquently attest. The corridors of the 
Hillyer Art Gallery are hung with artist 
proofs of Harper's Magazine and the 
Century Magazine illustrations given to 
the college by George W. Cable, the novel- 
ist, who has a home at Northampton. It 
is singular that the art collections of our 
woman's colleges are nowhere suggestive 
of women's skill with brush or chisel. 
One looks in vain for an Elizabeth Gard- 
ner, Emma Klumpke, Mary Cassatt or the 
scores of clever women now aiding the 
development of American Art. With in- 
creased endowment, due recognition will 
doubtless be given them iu; the sesthetic 
life of all our colleges. 

The musical organisations at Wellesley 
have a deservedly high reputation. The 
Beethoven Society, consisting of eighty 

37 



The American Girl at College 



members, has received the encomiums of 
the best critics. It gives two concerts a 
year. Recently it rendered Stuart's can- 
tata, "King Rene's Daughter." A Glee 
Club and Banjo Club also give two con- 
certs annually, and enliven many of the 
college festivals; Wellesley has no dis- 
tinctive dramatic society. The oldest 
society of the college is the Shakspeare, 
a branch of the London Society. It is 
devoted to serious study of the plays of 
the immortal bard. Once a year it ren- 
ders a play. Two years ago it gave in 
the open air "As You Like It," last year 
"Love's Labour's Lost;" and this year 
" Twelfth Night" was cleverly rendered. 
These plays are usually given without 
change of costume or scenery. The stage 
is a bower of evergreen trees. The idea is 
to confine attention to the text and char- 
acterisation and to stimulate the imagina- 
tion after the manner of the old English 
drama. 

The natural beauty of the environments 
of Wellesley, with its outlying hills, un- 
dulating valley and winding river, lends 

38 



i^sthetic Culture 



realistic and picturesque effect to the 
primitive rendition of Shakspeare's, plays. 
Last year's seniors gave a Greek pageant, 
an imitation of the Greek flower festival. 
The accompanying poem was recited by 
its author, in a typical Greek robe, while 
the songs were rendered by sixteen 
maidens in classic gowns of varied colour. 
The music was accompanied by rhythmic 
movements, the players were decorated 
with wreaths and garlands of flowers, and 
the whole suggested the Greek festivals, 
when Doric maidens measured their skill 
with the Greek lads, although the lads in 
this instance were conspicuous by their 
absence. Though the Greek department 
at Wellesley is highly endorsed by native 
Greek scholars the college has not yet 
attempted a classic play in the original. 
Materially and scholastically the music 
school at Wellesley is exceptionally strong, 
while the Farnsworth Art Building, opened 
in 1889, affords every modern facility for 
advancement in technical art. 

Dramatic performances are not encour- 
aged at Bryn Mawr. The drama is an- 

39 



The American Girl at College 



tagonistic to the Quaker spirit that in- 
fluences this beautiful institution. Plays 
are, however, frequently given, one or two 
girls being the instigator, or one elass 
complimenting another by a dramatic in- 
dulgence. Much originality is displayed. 
" Siegfried up to Date," from the pen of a 
Bryn Mawr girl, represented the Faculty 
as gods and afforded much amusement. 
Hans Andersen's " Fairy Tales" are fre- 
quently adapted to the stage. Two or 
three plays are given annually. Girls 
make their own costumes and wear the 
masculine dress complete. The plays are 
given in the gymnasium. No scenery is 
used. Plays with quick action are sought, 
and clever devices beguile the audience to 
forget the absence of scenery. Dramas at 
Bryn Mawr must be original. Much talent 
was displayed last year among the juniors. 
The Batailles des Fleurs^ adapted from the 
French, was given with much eclat. 

It is singular that no French plays have 
ever been rendered in the original text at 
any of the colleges. True, there are few 
French dramas that admit rendition with- 

40 



i^sthetic Culture 



out careful expurgation, yet for the sake 
of the language it would seem that more 
attention should be given to that foun- 
tain spring of dramatic inspiration — the 
French drama. Nothing would be lost, 
while much might be gained, and perhaps 
when alumnae associations of the future 
entertain distinguished guests of France, 
as they did recently in New York, more 
than two college-bred women may be 
found capable of venturing beyond bon 
Jour, au revoir, or " Comment vous portez- 
vous ? " More attention to the speaking 
of the continental languages is an impera- 
tive need in American education. There 
is certainly something radically defective 
in present methods, otherwise greater re- 
sults would be secured. 

Thirty-five young women constitute the 
Bryn Mawr Glee Club, whose reputation, 
like that of the Banjo Club, is confined to 
college circles. They have given four of 
Sullivan's operas. Bryn Mawr has no 
music school. Beyond lectures on sculp- 
ture and architecture, art has no place in 
its curriculum. 

41 



The American Girl at College 



The "Idlers," at the Harvard Annex, 
give a drama every three weeks. They 
wear men's clothes when the play requires 
it. As mere pleasure is the object of the 
"Idlers," original travesties prevail and 
are oftener in the club's programme than 
legitimate comedy or tragedy. Glee Club 
and banjo also "drive dull care away," 
and have their share in all festivals, 
" wise or merry." 

The Annex also is without a music or 
art school. Lectures by Professors Moore 
and Paine of Harvard College impart the 
principles of both arts. 

The practice as well as the theory of 
music and of art are recognised at Mt. 
Holyoke and the Baltimore colleges; but 
as yet, independently of the regular col- 
lege course social aesthetics have not de- 
veloped in either so extensively as at 
the older colleges. The efficiency of the 
methods pursued in imparting sesthetic 
culture in the colleges where it has special 
recognition, as at Vassar, Wellesley and 
Smith, finds practical demonstration in the 
large number of alumnae, who are pursu- 

42 



i^sthetic Culture 



ing music and art in the capacity of 
teachers, painters, public singers or pro- 
fessional pianists. ^Esthetic culture as 
expressed in music and art is the aroma 
of scholastic training. Without it, educa- 
tion is scarcely complete. Its subtle 
influence is finding substantial expression 
on every side, especially in the architec- 
tural and decorative features of the col- 
lege buildings. The barren whitewashed 
school-room, the cheerless parlour with 
rude prints on walls, dried grasses in 
homely vases on ungainly mantletrees are 
now as remote as the masculine stupidity 
that once denied to woman the possession 
of an intellect. Witness the library and 
reception rooms at Vassar; the Browning 
parlour at Wellesley with its exquisite 
stained glass windows, commemorating 
the poets' masterpieces, the inlaid tables, 
choses de luxe of many climes; or the 
Faculty chamber with its palatial sweep, 
richly upholstered furniture, artistic hang- 
ing and magnificent window commanding 
a landscape of suggestive beauty ; or the 
dining rooms of Bryn Mawr with oaken 

43 



The American Girl at College 

panelled walls, picturesque mantletrees, 
logs crackling on the mediaeval hearth and 
quaint chimney corners; not to forget the 
dainty and inviting boudoirs characteristic 
of all colleges, manifesting individual love 
of the beautiful in the concrete life of the 
students and in the refinement of their 
surroundings as well as in their abstract 
theories of the beautiful. 

^44 



CHAPTER IV 

SOCIAL LIFE 

A STRIKING feature of the collegiate 
life of American girls is the almost 
total abolition of dormitories and formal 
rules of conduct, — which are necessary 
factors in the young ladies' seminary and 
fashionable boarding schools. 
- College authorities wisely concluded in 
the beginning that a girl with mental 
calibre sufficient to pass the entrance 
examination would have sufficient self- 
respect and knowledge of the proprieties 
to conduct herself properly without the 
restriction of prescribed rules. 

This supposition or faith on the part of 
the faculty has had a most salutary effect 
upon the students. To be put upon one's 
honour develops and strengthens an in- 
dividual self-respect. 

A spontaneous esprit de corps is the out- 

45 



The American Girl at College 



come, leading to the establfshment at 
Vassar and Bryn Mawr of a " students' 
self-government society," The students' 
society at Vassar has flourished four years, 
subject to the authority of the president. 
It decides all questions and has had an 
admirable effect in adding dignity to stu- 
dent life. 

Bryn Mawr authorities neither make 
nor enforce rules. Recognising the effi- 
cacy of unity of action, especially as 
regards social liberties, the students of 
Bryn Mawr established two years ago a 
self-government society. Each cottage 
has a proctor, generally a senior, to whom 
mooted questions of social propriety are 
referred. As a matter of personal safety, 
students prefer the chaperonage of an 
elder, naturally a post-graduate, in their 
strolls beyond the college campus into the 
open country or on the railroad, especially 
at night in going to and returning from 
entertainments at Philadelphia. " You 
are ladies; conduct yourself accord- 
ingly." This is the only law known to 
Smith and the Harvard Annex. 

46 



Social Life 

The severity of the curriculum and the 
earnest absorption of the students in their 
work left little time or disposition to cul- 
tivate social amenities in the colleges' 
tentative periods. But woman's inherent 
aesthetic and social instinct soon craved 
fellowship beyond lecture room and li- 
brary. Club life consequently sprang up, 
and in serious or frivolous guise is now a 
leading feature of all our women colleges. 

The superior social advantages of the 
students of Harvard Annex are unques- 
tioned. Two hundred and fifty years the 
seat of Harvard College, Cambridge, 
steeped in the best thought of New Eng- 
land, distills an aroma not to be found 
elsewhere. There are no dormitories nor 
cottages. The students are scattered 
in private homes throughout the city, 
where they are privileged to test to their 
liearts' content "plain living and high 
thinking." 

The Idlers' club, devoted to social en- 
joyment and good fellowship, meet in the 
inviting library of Fay House. This and 
the Emmanuel (named after the college 

47 



The American Girl at College 



from which John Harvard graduated) 
bring the students together in an informal 
way. Glee and musical clubs are sources 
of varied pleasure, and the concerts of the 
former for the benefit of the library are 
Cambridge events. The afternoon teas 
held on Wednesdays in the parlours of 
Fay House by Mrs. Agassiz, the widow 
of Prof. Agassiz of Harvard, and presi- 
dent of the Society of Collegiate Instruc- 
tion of Women, bring the students and 
their friends together, making them ac- 
quainted with the professors and distin- 
guished guests at Cambridge. A Gradu- 
ates' Society has recently been organised. 
To Cambridge's unwritten social law, 
however, more conservative in many 
respects than that of the old world, Annex 
students instinctively yield, and in this 
respect their social privileges are unique. 
Smith College was the first to adopt the 
cottage plan. Wellesley,Bryn Mawr and 
the Baltimore college readily followed, 
and the dormitory, as it was once under- 
stood, is now the almost exclusive property 
of preparatory schools. 

48 



Social Life 

Vassar still retains its suites of one to 
three rooms in the main building. It has 
recently erected, at a cost of one hundred 
thousand dollars, a commodious new hall 
embodying the latest architectural and 
hygienic ideas. It has thirty-six single 
apartments and thirty-four suites of two 
sleeping apartments opening into one par- 
lour or study room, accommodating in all 
one hundred and four students. On the 
first floor are spacious reception rooms and 
parlours, while the dining room, occupy- 
ing two stories, is effectively lighted by 
stained glass windows. * Ten high backed 
oaken chairs lend an air of dignity to 
each of the eight tables. Wellesley also 
retains sleeping apartments in the main 
building, besides having several cottages. 
So popular is the cottage plan that the list 
of applicants for admission is always full 
and large numbers of students are forced 
to seek quarters in the town of Wellesley, 
while they impatiently wait their turn to 
become cottage dwellers. 

The buildings at Wellesley are pictu- 
resque. Complete in modern conven- 

49 



The American Girl at College 



iences and prettily decorated, the cottages 
accommodate from fifty to seventy-five 
students. Each is in charge of a ma- 
tron, a woman of culture, appreciative of 
the social needs of girls, and in ready 
sympathy with their aspirations. The 
arrangement of the rooms varies at 
different colleges. Single chambers with 
alcoves that conceal behind portieres the 
bed, leaving the rest of the room a salon 
or library, or a common parlour with 
three separate chambers leading from it, 
are popular. Single and double rooms 
by clever devices in the way of folding 
beds, screens and divans, rich in cover- 
ing and with silk pillows of various hues, 
are ravishing boudoirs or salons accord- 
ing to the occupant's caprice. Bryn 
Mawr is probably the finest equipped col- 
lege in this respect in the country, if not 
in the world. No two rooms are archi- 
tecturally alike. In decoration, every 
chamber reveals the individual taste and 
bespeaks the woman, refuting the absurd 
assertion of Mr. W. D. Howells in "A 
Woman's Reason," that a girl takes no 

50 



Social Life 

real satisfaction in adorning her chamber 
until she is married. The cottages are 
nowhere confined to one class of students. 
Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, all 
mingle indiscriminately under one roof. 
This arrangement prevails at all colleges 
that maintain the cottage plan. On leav- 
ing the cottage at Bryn Mawr for an out- 
ing in the city or elsewhere, the matron is 
informed in advance ; otherwise the free- 
dom of the private home prevails. All 
have a common dining-room. At Wel- 
lesley and Smith, students wait on the 
table. At Vassar and Bryn Mawr maids 
of colour serve the wholesome viands. 
An indispensable adjunct of every girl's 
room, especially at Vassar and Bryn 
Mawr, is the dainty tea-table with swing- 
ing kettle, snowy dimity, aesthetic china 
and souvenir spoons. To entertain is the 
ambition of every girl. Weekly high teas 
are a frequent indulgence, while the gos- 
sip distilled nightly over the " cosey" is 
an ever green episode of higher educa- 
tion ! . No mean side feature of the mod- 
ern educational life is the graceful brewing 

51 



The American Girl at College 



and sipping of the " cup that cheers, but 
does not inebriate." Powerful is its role 
in home and society. Practice alone im- 
parts to woman ease at a tea-table, and 
this the college girl will find of inestima- 
ble value when she enters society, how- 
ever limited its scope may be. Casting 
lots for the next year's rooms, and the 
annual senior sale of draperies, bric-a- 
brac and tea-table paraphernalia are ex- 
citing events of June. 

Dancing is an occasional indulgence, a 
handkerchief on the right arm designating 
the knight of the lancers. On special 
occasions students invite their men friends 
to the hops. Gentlemen may call at any 
time at the cottages at Bryn Mawr, as 
they would at the young ladies' homes. 
There is no occasion for the puerile subter- 
fuge of boarding schools at the announce- 
ment of a masculine caller, " He is my 
cousin or my brother. " Monday is Wel- 
lesley's holiday, and other colleges are 
adopting that day instead of the tra- 
ditional Saturday. Unchaperoned, the 
students may seek on these occasions 

53 



Social Life 

Boston, New York, or Philadelphia in 
quest of the latest in the art, musical or 
theatrical worlds, keeping thus in touch 
with the times and " nature which makes 
us all kin." 

Aside from the impromptu dramatic and 
musical diversions and the fete days of 
which all colleges have more or less, and 
despite the proverbial belief that a woman 
cannot keep a secret, Greek letter societies 
with finely equipped fraternity rooms are 
found at many of the colleges. Of six 
thousand five hundred girls enrolled as 
members of Greek letter societies no 
small portion are students or alumnae of 
woman colleges, although the co-educa- 
tional institutions are naturally more fully 
represented. Smith College alone has no 
secret societies. The three graces of the 
fraternity girl are scholarship, character 
and manners. The oldest of these frater- 
nities is the Phi Beta Phi, organised in 
1867. It has twenty-nine chapters and a 
membership of eighteen hundred. Alice 
Freeman Palmer, Anna Dickinson and 
Helen Watterson Moody belong to the 

53 



The American Girl at College 



Kappa Alpha Theta, one of the largest of 
these societies, having members scattered 
over the states. The Alpha Phi was the 
first woman's fraternity to build a chapter 
house. Not the least distinguished of its 
members are Frances Willard, Martha 
Foote Crow and Jane Bancroft Robinson. 
The Kappa Kappa Gamma girls wear a 
key set with jewels, and their official organ 
The Key claims to be the first periodical 
published by a woman's fraternity. Delta 
Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, and Delta, 
Delta, Delta or Tri Delta, are growing 
fraternities which find allegiance in many 
of the woman's colleges. Vassar and 
Wellesley have also their Young Women's 
Christian Association, and, in keeping 
with the vital interest which sociology is 
awakening throughout the civilised world, 
this science is now a part of each college 
curriculum. And all are active partici- 
pants in the college settlement movement, 
now a practical feature in Rivington 
Street, New York, and in Philadelphia 
and Boston. All these organisations 
afford outlet for various philanthropic 

54 



Social Life 

activities, while they tend to initiate the 
members into parliamentary usage, com- 
mand of vocal expression, ease of manner 
and the exercise of social graces by reason 
of the teas, " socials " and banquets that 
vary the more serious activities and in- 
terests in these centres of progressive 
growth. Club life in our women colleges, 
however, threatens abnormal develop- 
ment, to the detriment of the fundamen- 
tal purpose of collegiate training. Some 
authorities, recognising the possibility of 
its abuse, restrict a student from joining 
more than two societies. This example 
cannot be too speedily imitated. The 
temptation to the ambitious or popular 
girl to accept a number of official posi- 
tions in various clubs or societies is often 
irresistible. Comparatively few students, 
unless restricted by the college authorities, 
can rise above the pressure of popular ap- 
peal. The father of a Vassar girl com- 
plained recently that when his daughter 
came home one Friday night to remain 
until Monday, she was unable to eat or 
sleep or entertain her family or even con- 

55 



The American Girl at College 



suit the dressmaker, so disturbed was she 
by the pressing duties imposed by official 
positions in seven distinct college societies. 

This eagerness to grasp all is an out- 
come of new conditions. It is not confined 
to the college girl alone, but embraces 
nearly all classes of modern, progress- 
ive women. Moderation in this respect 
could nowhere be more fittingly inaugu- 
rated than in the woman's college. The 
social privileges of the college girl, how- 
ever considered, are simply the privileges 
of the well-bred woman in any well-bred 
community. 

A common charge of worldly women 
against their collegiate sisters is the lat- 
ters' want of social grace and conversa- 
tional power, or rather lack of small talk 
and spontaneity. Indeed not a few dis- 
tinguished observers do not hesitate to 
assert that the average college woman has 
bad manners, when not utterly manner- 
less. Sweeping as these criticisms may 
seem, they are not wholly unshared by 
thoughtful, liberal college women, as this 
letter will show. 

56 



Social Life 

" I attended a breakfast of the class of 
1887," writes this gifted master of arts of 
a famous seat of learning, " and I have 
not been able yet to divest myself of the 
appalling heaviness of the affair. Why is 
it that college women have such poor 
conversational ability, so little spon- 
taneity — ' touch and go ' — those seeming 
inherent .qualities of the typical Ameri- 
can, met in general society ? Does higher 
education cripple the natural or fail to 
develop the latent social graces?" 

Social grace and small talk are gifts of 
nature no less than talent for the sciences, 
languages or the arts. Wheii not naturally 
possessed, however, they may be acquired 
by the exercise of that eternal vigilance 
which is the price of good dressing. 

Varied and extensive social opportunity 
however is another necessary supplement 
to the acquisition of these coveted and 
indispensable gifts of the rounded wo- 
man. Now let it not be forgotten that 
our women colleges are in their infancy ; 
that they were founded and to the present 
have been almost wholly sustained by 

57 



The American Girl at College 



serious, earnest workers, — women, drawn 
by pecuniary necessity, no less than 
natural desire, to store their minds in as 
short a time as possible with marketable 
knowledge. Under this pressure there 
has been little or no leisure or inclination 
to cultivate social amenities outside the 
intercourse inseparable from communities 
of identical interests or aims. Then the 
conventional idea that when a girl goes to 
school hers must be solely the life of 
books, and must cut her off mentally as 
well as bodily from the world of action, 
has until quite recently permeated the 
college no less than the preparatory 
school, or Young Ladies' Academy. Slow 
but subtle change is at work, and whether 
the social lapses charged against early col- 
lege women are just or unjust, suspicion 
of such charges can hardly be possible to 
the future college woman. The rapid in- 
troduction of influential and fashionable 
women of liberal culture upon the Board 
of Managers of our women colleges is 
sweeping away the old barriers and bring- 
ing about a new order of things. Women 

58 



Social Life 

of the world for the most part, they are 
awake to the needs of college girls, — needs 
which they are happily equipped to sup- 
ply. For example no distinguished guest 
now graces Boston's most exclusive or 
fashionable circles who does not find his 
or her way to Wellesley College, entailing 
a reception or tea on the part of the 
students. Such visits are made possible 
by two members of the Board of Man- 
agers, Mrs. ex-Gov. Claflin and Mrs. 
Richard Gardner, leaders respectively of 
Boston's most cultured or ultra-fashion- 
able circles. In their splendid homes 
these women give entertainments to which 
Wellesley girls are welcomed, and brought 
in social contact with the flower of Boston 
courtesy. 

Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer has always 
advocated the cultivation of the social 
side of college women, and is herself no 
less a practical than refreshing example 
of its possibilities. Since her marriage to 
Professor Palmer her artistic home at 
Cambridge welcomes the college girl to 
meet the brightest of Harvard men. 

59 



The American Girl at College 



Women of similar social culture are to be 
found on the Board of Bryn Mawr, who 
give the students an occasional vital touch 
with Philadelphia's most exclusive social 
life. As these opportunities broaden, fewer 
bookworms will infest our colleges and 
careless or indifferently dressed able wo- 
men will be numbered among the tradi- 
tions of the past. 

Another innovation that cannot fail to 
enlarge the conversational resources of 
the college girl, putting her in touch with 
the every-day world, is the Bulletin of the 
news of the universe daily hung in the col- 
lege hall, while questions of state at home 
and abroad are vigorously discussed in 
class. Newspapers and current periodi- 
cals are now accessible to every student. 
Interest in politics is stimulated and en- 
couraged by the formation of political 
parties with caucuses, conventions and 
mock elections. " Nothing would give me 
greater pleasure or satisfaction," said an 
eminent scholar and phenomenal editor, 
who can absorb in a masterly manner and 
in an incredibly short time the gist of the 

60 



Social Life. 

daily news of the world, " than to step in 
daily on my way to the office at a woman's 
college and give a twenty-minutes' resume 
of the news of the world as revealed by 
the morning newspapers." 

The modern college awaits the estab- 
lishment of a chair of home and foreign 
news, and the realisation of this dream 
is imminent. Increase pertinent conver- 
sational coin, broaden social opportunity 
during student days, and what possibilities 
may not await the college-bred woman of 
the next decade! 

61 



CHAPTER V 

SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS 

IN keeping with their numerical growth, 
and the raising of scholastic stand- 
ards, our woman's colleges are now in- 
creasing scholarships and fellowships. 
What is a scholarship ? What are fellow- 
ships ? 

Scholarships are endowments for the 
assistance of meritorious students unable 
to meet the expenses of a college course. 
Various sums are bequeathed or donated 
for this purpose. In all educational in- 
stitutions, tuition fees are fixed expenses; 
no economy can reduce them and no extra 
work pay for them. A. determinate and 
obstinate quantity, term bills are beyond 
the control of the student. Formerly the 
endowment of scholarships was confined 
almost exclusively to wealthy philanthro- 
pists; but with the growth of college 
alumnae students' aid societies have sprung 

62 



Scholarships and Fellowships 



up in all parts of the United States. A 
constantly increasing power, cognizant of 
the obstacles and the needs of worthy 
women, these organisations are establish- 
ing scholarships in the seats of higher 
education. In most cases they loan 
money to students without interest, in the 
expectation that whenever these women 
are able they will repay the society. 
Assistance is often given, partly in gifts, 
partly in loans. Vassar has twenty-five 
scholarships, which represent the income 
of one hundred and sixty-six thousand 
dollars. The applicant for a scholarship 
there must become a regular class member, 
furnish evidence of need and maintain a 
creditable rank as a student. Last year 
Vassar expended in gifts and loans ten 
thousand six hundred and ten dollars. 
Smith has five scholarships of fifty and 
one hundred dollars each. These are 
awarded when satisfactory written state- 
ments are presented from persons not rel- 
atives, that such aid is necessary. These 
awards last year amounted to ten thou- 
sand five hundred dollars. 

63 



The American Girl at College 



Wellesley has twenty-five scholarships, 
each the interest of five thousand dollars, 
vested in the name of the college. Each 
scholarship includes free tuition and 
board. The income accruing from these 
scholarships is appropriated by the Stu- 
dents' Aid Society, an organisation com- 
posed of friends of the college. It 
disbursed the past year in gifts and 
loans eleven thousand eight hundred and 
eleven dollars and is unable to meet the 
demands. 

Its scholarships are awarded on recom- 
mendation of the faculty, and it is only in 
unusual cases that money is promised a 
student before she enters college. In 
addition to the scholarships vested in the 
name of the college, Wellesley has twelve 
other free scholarships representing an 
annual income of four thousand one hun- 
dred and fifty dollars; which makes the 
amount of money appropriated in this 
way twelve thousand nine hundred dol- 
lars. Harvard Annex has two scholar- 
ships supported by its Students' Aid 
Society and is working to establish a Eu- 

64 



Scholarships and Fellowships 



ropean Fellowship. Friends from time to 
time have supported at the Annex one or 
more students year by year, and thus have 
virtually established annual scholarships. 
These have been of great service and 
some of the students who have received 
help in this way have become graduates 
of distinction. 

Students' aid societies are a growth of 
the past two or three years. The first 
scholarship of the General Aid Society of 
Vassar was opened for competition in 
1890. It differs from similar associations 
in that it offers scholarships on competi- 
tive entrance examinations. Branches of 
this organisation are stationed in New 
York, Brooklyn, Boston, Louisville, 
Poughkeepsie, and Pittsburgh. Each 
offers a two-hundred-dollar scholarship 
to girls living within a defined radius 
of the respective cities. Many of these 
scholarships are tenable for four years. 
Any deserving girl may compete on appli- 
cation prior to the annual entrance exami- 
nation in June. These examinations are 
held in the leading cities. 

65 



The American Girl at College 



Smith has no students' aid society. It 
has five scholarships. 

Bryn Mawr offers two scholarships of 
two hundred dollars each, " open to mem- 
bers of the Society of Friends that are 
unable to pay the full tuition." When 
there are more than two applicants, the 
candidates are selected by competitive 
examination. 

Besides the four colleges here con- 
sidered there are eleven co-educational 
institutions represented in the Association 
of Collegiate Alumnae, with scholarships 
open to women on conditions varying 
slightly from those imposed by Vassar, 
Wellesley, Smith or Bryn Mawr. The 
aggregate amount expended by these 
co-educational institutions last year in 
scholarships to women was about fifteen 
thousand nine hundred and nineteen dol- 
lars and fifty cents. This money, with 
three exceptions, was in the form of out- 
right gifts. In the exceptional cases the 
money was loaned at interest and promis- 
sory notes were required. More than fifty 
thousand dollars were expended last year 

66 



Scholarships and Fellowships 



in gifts and loans by the fifteen colleges 
of the Association. Besides this number, 
the United States has two hundred and 
twenty-two co-educational institutions of 
whose resources in the way of scholarships 
and loans no data have been gathered. 
Whether the annual expenditure of so much 
money is warranted without definite and 
material return is much discussed by col- 
lege authorities. The only means by 
which it may safely escape abuse, it would 
seem, is to make all financial aid assume 
the nature of loans, the same to be paid 
within a stipulated time after graduation, 
at a reasonable rate of interest. This is 
the method satisfactorily pursued at Cor- 
nell, Vassar and Wesleyan University. 
The president of the latter asserts that in 
every case the women who have drawn 
from this fund have repaid the loan with 
reasonable promptness. Richly suggestive 
is the method pursued by the Woman's 
Educational Aid Association formed in 
Evanston, 111., in 1872, to give financial 
help to women studying at Northwestern 
University. This association has had 

67 



The American Girl at College 



twenty years in which to prove the practi- 
cality of its theory. The association has 
a fund from which sums not exceeding 
one hundred dollars are loaned to students 
at four per cent, interest. It has never 
lost a dollar by its loans. A strict busi- 
ness basis alone will preserve the dignity 
of the scholarship and insure the inde- 
pendence of the holder. The record of 
the men and women who have been finan- 
cially aided by our educational institutions 
would be interesting indeed. 

Bryn Mawr enjoys the distinction of 
being the only woman's college that sup- 
ports home and foreign fellowships. As 
promoters of the higher education of 
women, its faculty consider fellowships of 
paramount importance. ^Bryn Mawr offers 
at present six annual fellowships; one in 
Greek, Latin, English, mathematics, his- 
tory, politics, and biology respectively. 
No one can compete for a fellowship who 
has not a college degree or a certificate of 
prolonged study under well-known instruc- 
tors. The competition is open to college 
post-graduates throughout the country. 

68 



Scholarships and Fellowships 



A Bryn Mawr fellowship entitles the 
holder to free tuition and a furnished 
room in the college building, and the sum 
of three hundred dollars. It is awarded 
as a recognition of previous attainment 
and is a coveted honor. Generally fel- 
lowships are awarded to the candidate 
who had studied the longest, provided her 
work gives promise of future success. 
All fellows of Bryn Mawr may study for 
the degree of doctor of philosophy, a 
fellowship being counted equivalent to 
the degree of bachelor of arts, 

A fellow by courtesy is one who con- 
tinues, by courtesy of the faculty, to 
study at a college after the expiration of 
her fellowship. 

At Bryn Mawr a European fellowship 
is conferred annually on a member of the 
graduating class attaining the highest 
scholarship. The holder receives five 
hundred dollars, sufficient for one year's 
study and residence at some foreign uni- 
versity, English or continental. 

Three European fellowships have 
already been conferred: Miss Emily 

69 



The American Girl at College 



Greene Balch of Boston, the first holder, 
studied at the College de France and the 
Sorbonne. Her specialty was political 
economy. She is now engaged in philan- 
thropic work in Boston. An Ohio girl. 
Miss Katherine M.Shipley, was the second 
winner. A year at the university at Leip- 
sic and a second year at the College de 
France and the Sorbonne have equipped 
this bright woman for advanced work. 
Miss Emory of Maine, last year's holder, 
will remain at Bryn Mawr a year as post- 
graduate before going abroad. Her spe- 
cial line is Greek and Latin. 

What value have fellowships for wo- 
men ? It is only twenty years since it 
was possible for her to go to college. 
Why cannot she be content with B. A. and 
A. M. ? 

The Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 
organised eleven years, and comprising 
one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight 
college-bred women representing fifteen 
institutions, has effectively answered the 
query by establishing in the past two 
years one home and two European fellow- 

70 



Scholarships and Fellowships 



ships. Recently a scholarship in modern 
languages has been added. This is the 
gift of Mrs. Mary Bannister Willard, prin- 
cipal of the American Home School in 
Berlin. The scholarship, which includes 
board and tuition for one year in the Ameri- 
can Home School in Berlin, is awarded by 
a joint committee consisting of the Com- 
mittee on Fellowships of the Association 
of Collegiate Alumnse and a committee 
composed of Miss Frances Willard and 
Mrs. Mary Huse Wilder. The candidate 
must be a graduate of not more than one 
year's standing of some college belonging 
to the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. 
She must also have studied French or 
German at least one year under compe- 
tent professors. Miss Helen Babcock 
now holds this scholarship. To open to 
women college professorships in all col- 
leges irrespective of sex, says this for- 
midable body of intellectual women, will 
raise woman's dignity as an educational 
factor, broaden her field, and improve 
the status of women in the lower grades 
of teaching. Since two-thirds of the 

71 



The American Girl at College 



lower grade teachers of the United States 
are women, the status cannot be too 
quickly raised. 

How can the coveted college professor- 
ships be opened to women in all colleges? 
Only by bringing forward women of at- 
tainments so distinguished, that not to 
offer them college work will reflect on 
man's critical acumen. 

The Swedish University's offer of the 
professorship of mathematics to Madame 
Kovalewsky was a natural result of ex- 
traordinary attainments; and European 
fellowship will put the American woman 
in the way to acquire exceptional scho- 
lastic power and distinction. 

Three women are already holding 
fellowships founded in 1890 by the Col- 
legiate Association. Miss Gentry is study- 
ing mathematics at the University of 
Berlin; Miss Snow is at work at botany 
at the Zurich University, and Miss Carter 
is specialising at botany at Cornell Univer- 
sity. The first two, probably, will remain 
abroad a second year in order to take the 
doctor's degree. 

72 



Scholarships and Fellowships 



A graduate of Smith and Cornell Uni- 
versity, Miss Alice Walton, holds the 
European fellowship of 1893, while a 
graduate of Bryn Mawr, Miss Susan B. 
Franklin, holds the American fellowship. 

A fellowship of the Collegiate Associa- 
tion is awarded only to the candidate who 
gives promise of actual distinction in the 
field to which she is devoting herself. No 
competitive examination is required. The 
bestowal is based upon evidence of the 
candidate's ability, original gifts, previ- 
ous training, energy, power of endurance, 
health, and her prospects of success in her 
chosen line of study. The holder receives 
five hundred dollars, which, in unusually 
promising cases, may be increased. One 
such case is now recorded. The foreign 
fellowship offered this year by the Wo- 
man's Education Association of Boston is 
important. Five hundred dollars is the 
sum provided and it is open upon the 
same conditions offered by the Associa- 
tion of Collegiate Alumnse, with the ex- 
ception that graduates of Harvard Annex 
are eligible. 

73 



The American Girl at College 



This fellowship may be granted upon 
equal terms to anyone who is intending to 
take up the practice of any of the three 
learned professions, or who is looking for- 
ward to a position as teacher, professor 
or investigator, or to any other literary 
and scientific vocation. Miss Mary Buck- 
ingham, a Harvard Annex graduate, cap- 
tured the fellowship and is now studying 
the classics at Cambridge University, 
England. 

The advance of the present over the 
past is nowhere more convincingly evi- 
denced perhaps than in the wide-spread 
and prompt response to the constantly 
increasing ambition of the college girl. 

74 



CHAPTER VI 

AMERICA TO JAPAN 

"'"T^HE naughty girl! How can she 
1 do it ? Spoil those dear little an- 
gelic creatures!" remonstrated the witty 
essayist, Agnes Repplier, when told that 
Miss Urae Tsuda, Bryn Mawr's special 
Japanese student, contemplated an Amer- 
ican scholarship for the women of her 
native land. Doubtless Miss Repplier's 
remonstrance against the higher education 
of Japanese women finds warm supporters 
in the readers of " Japonica" and Lafcadio 
Hearn. In the prose no less than the 
poetry of her native land, Miss Tsuda is 
probably as well versed as Sir Edwin 
Arnold and as worthy of a hearing. 

Born in Tokio, Miss Tsuda was sent to 
this country at the age of seven by the 
government of Japan to be educated. 
Under the patronage of the Japanese 

75 



The American Girl at Colle'ge 



minister at Washington she was placed in 
a private family in that city, and on the 
completion of her education at the age of 
eighteen she returned to Tokio and taught 
in the Peeresses' school. Ambitious to 
pursue her studies further she returned 
three years ago and entered Bryn Mawr 
for a special course in biology. The 
course completed, she sailed last June for 
Japan to resume a higher position in the 
government schools. 

Bright, intelligent and charming is this 
young Japanese. She speaks English 
without an accent, and wears the Ameri- 
can costume which does not become her 
as does her native dress. She is small of 
stature, with the graceful swaying move- 
ments always so captivating to the 
foreigner within the Flowery Kingdom. 
Her small, soft brown hands evidence the 
manicure art in which Japan achieved per- 
fection centuries ago. 

Miss Tsuda numbers among her friends 
the most influential and cultivated women 
of Philadelphia, and to these she appealed 
some months ago, unfolding her plan of 

76 



America to Japan 



an American scholarship for Japanese 
women. As a result, an' organisation 
known as " The Committee of the Wo- 
men's Scholarship for Japanese Women," 
was formed, and Miss Tsuda delivered an 
address at the Drexel Institute on the 
" Education of Japanese Women. " Much 
interest was elicited, and a scholarship 
fund of ten thousand dollars was subse- 
quently raised. 

The scholarship will be controlled by 
a permanent board of Philadelphia women. 
The successful candidate will be under 
their personal care. 

"Japan as a whole," says Miss Tsuda, 
" is well known to many Americans. One 
side of Japanese life, however, the needs 
of its women, has attracted little atten- 
tion. It has been kept in the back- 
ground." 

During her stay in this country the 
young Japanese was particularly impressed 
by the position American women hold, 
the great influence they exercise for good, 
the power given them by education and 
training, the congenial intercourse be- 



77 



The American Girl at College 



tween men and women, and the sympathy 
in the homes between brothers and sisters, 
husbands and wives. " Why cannot such 
things exist in my own country ?" queried 
the foreigner. " Unlike many eastern 
countries Japan has never had any great 
prejudice against women. W':-men under 
Japan's ancient regime enjoyed much 
liberty, and were given an education 
almost equal to that of men. Customs of 
ages, long-protracted wars, the old feudal 
system, the introduction of the doctrines 
of Confucius from China, and the religion 
of Buddha from India, have all had their 
blighting influence. Yet the life of a 
Japanese woman is often a happy one," 
asserts Ume Tsuda. " Men are kind to 
their wives, and in many cases allow them 
much liberty. Nevertheless, neither law 
nor custom puts them on an equality with 
men of their own class. Then, a religion 
that tends to degrade rather than elevate 
can scarcely afford much consolation to a 
woman. Happily, the men are learning 
to look down on the superstitions and 
customs that once bound them. The last 

78 



America to Japan 



twenty years have witnessed great 
changes. Universities, colleges and 
schools have sprung up. The wonderful 
inventions of America have been studied 
and introduced. 

" Despite the advances of the nation 
and much progress among the men, no cor- 
responding opportunities have been given 
to the women. Until six or seven years 
ago little had been done for their liberal 
education or toward helping them to meet 
the new conditions of life that new Japan 
brought with it. Real progress is impos- 
sible to Japan so long as her growth is all 
on one side: one half of the people are 
pushed forward, while the other half are 
kept back. 

"I feel," said Miss Tsuda, her almond 
eyes sparkling, " that not until the women 
are elevated and educated can Japan 
really take a high stand. I long for good 
women to arise at this critical period in 
Japan's history to be helpers, co-workers 
with men. Two great things are needed, 
Christianity and education. 

" Particularly is there need of educa- 

79 



The American Girl at College 



tion for the women of the upper classes. 
Theirs is the greatest influence. Yet they 
are the most backward in the present 
progressive movement. Living in se- 
cluded homes, they are the hardest to 
reach by Christian missionaries or the 
advocates of new education like myself, 
who believe that a woman has a more 
serious part in the world than to be a 
mere ornament for the home or plaything 
for men. Unlike the women of the 
poorer classes, who work side by side 
with their husbands on terms of equality, 
the women of the higher classes live in 
the world of old Japan — in an atmosphere 
foreign to that of their husbands. 

" To-day the men are out in the busy 
life of new Japan, the women are shut up 
at home, and the gap between them 
widens with the years. As it is they are 
not fit to be the companions of educated 
men, and there is danger that, unless 
some change takes place, modern Japan 
will be, if anything, worse off than under 
the old regime when men were less ad- 
vanced than they are to-day. 

80 



America to Japan 



" Among the poorest classes alone is 
there absolute equality." 

When Ume Tsuda returned home 
after her first visit to America, and before 
any real movement had been made for the 
education of women, she was especially 
impressed with the difference between the 
sexes and the power men held in their 
hands. Women were often entirely de- 
pendent, having no means of self-support, 
since few honourable occupations were 
open to them except teaching, and for that 
they were not trained. 

" The present witnesses many social 
and moral evils unknown to ancient Japan. 
Men have broken down the old barriers. 
They no longer feel the same restraint. 
With the new freedom and the throwing 
away of old standards of morality, will a 
better order of things prevail ? Is it not 
time for the women of Japan to realise 
what their husbands and sons are doing?" 
asks this daughter of the West. 

Indifference to the position and educa- 
tion of women began to disappear some 
six or seven years ago. Christian men 

8i 



The American Girl at College 



and men who had been abroad wished to 
marry cultivated women. They desired 
their daughters as well as their sons to be 
well educated. Education of women be- 
came a favourite theme, and arguments for 
and against it were constantly brought 
forward. Some truly noble movements 
were taken up, in one of which Ume 
Tsuda was especially interested, — the es- 
tablishment of a school for the daughters 
of nobles by the Empress herself, who 
felt that something should be done for 
women of the aristocracy who were so dif- 
ficult to reach. 

Where are the teachers to train and 
help these eager students? is now the 
vital question. There are at present 
Japanese women anxious to prepare for 
the work of educating the girls of Japan. 
They are willing to devote their lives to 
it, if only they can have suitable prepa- 
ration. Few of them have opportunities 
of study, such as men have ; for none of 
the higher institutions are open to women, 
and they have not the means to go abroad 
for study. Yet they are better fitted 

82 



America to Japan 



already than any foreigner could be to 
take up the work among the women, 
especially among those of the higher class 
who in their impenetrable reserve cannot 
be reached by a foreign woman. 

Such are the facts that inspired Miss 
Tsuda to secure a permanent scholarship 
fund, the interest of which will enable a 
Japanese woman to take a four years* 
course of study in one of our institutions. 
The scholarship will be open to all Japan- 
ese women, as an incentive to advanced 
study ; a free gift from American women, 
evidencing their interest in the condition 
of Japanese women, and the high value 
they attach to education. 

The fellowship will be offered directly 
to the women of Japan by a competitive 
examination held in the different cities 
throughout the kingdom. The candidate 
will be examined not only in English, in 
such branches as would lead to a college 
course, but in Japanese language and lit- 
erature. 

Examinations for the scholarships are 
now progressing in the principal cities of 

83 



The American Girl at College 



Japan, and Bryn Mawr expects the suc- 
cessful candidate in October. 

The great need is the need of teach- 
ers of the higher education, of Japanese 
women fitted to enter at once into the 
government and private schools, to edu- 
cate Japanese girls according to American 
methods, to teach them by example and 
precept the benefits of a Christian civili- 
sation. 

"I regard," said Miss Tsuda, "the 
intimate association with American girls 
and women, the glimpses obtained of 
woman's position in American homes and 
woman's work in the world, as one of the 
most important points of this higher edu- 
cation, and I hope that the ladies of the 
committee will endeavour to supply this 
need during the years of study." 

In a preparatory school in the neigh- 
bourhood of Bryn Mawr a beautiful Ja- 
panese girl, the daughter of a wealthy 
noble, is now preparing for college. She 
clings to the native costume, and revels in 
sandal-wood chests and exquisite gowns, 
each designed to be worn during the blos- 

84 



America to Japan 



soming of special flowers. She can scarce- 
ly speak English. She came to this coun- 
try at the solicitation of a wealthy Qua- 
keress, who visited her father's house in 
Japan. 

Ume Tsuda is not the first Japanese 
maiden to avail herself of the higher edu- 
cational advantages of the United States. 
Less than ten years ago, two dainty 
" Yum Yums " were enrolled at Vassar. 

85 



CHAPTER VII 

HIGHER SPECIALISED WORK 

AN erroneous impression prevails that 
the literary or the classical course 
leads in popularity in women's colleges. 
While able educators and many laymen 
would eliminate the scientific course en- 
tirely from these colleges' educational cur- 
riculum, facts substantiate the assertion 
that no study has gained there a stronger 
foothold in the past few years than biol- 
ogy. Our colleges for the most part are 
well equipped to pursue this specialty, both 
as regards instructors, laboratories, aqua- 
riums and libraries. So thorough is this 
course, that its successful completion is 
accepted at the Woman's Medical Schools 
of Philadelphia and New York and at 
various colleges and schools of medi- 
cine, as equal to one year's study in these 
institutions. The popularity of biology 

86 



Higher Specialised Work 



adds largely to the number of post-grad- 
uate students yearly seeking the medi- 
cal profession. The fascinating study of 
lower organic life will doubtless encour- 
age many college-bred women to seek 
occupation in scientific horticulture and 
vegetable farming. 

The demand for higher specialised 
work among women increases. More and 
more women are devoting themselves to 
study and research in special lines; in the 
cultivation of the literary faculty, in the 
thorough investigation of historic records 
and in various fields of science. 

Few are the opportunities for work that 
these advanced lines offer men in this 
country. Rarer still are the openings for 
women. Higher specialised work is con- 
sequently largely confined at present to 
women of scholarly leisure and liberal 
income. 

The best facilities for pursuing these 
specialised studies, perhaps, are to be 
found at Cambridge, Johns Hopkins, Cor- 
nell or Bryn Mawr. In the department of 
zoology under direction of Professor Mark 

87 



The American Girl at College 



of Harvard, an Annex student, Miss Flor- 
ence Mayo of Rockland, Maine, prepared 
a study of " The Superior Incisors and 
Canine Teeth of Sheep," which was pub- 
lished, with lithographic illustrations by 
Professor Agassiz, in the Bulletin of the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology cf 
Harvard College, vol. xiii., No. 9. Miss 
Mayo has since graduated from the 
Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia. 

In the same department Miss Julia B. 
Piatt produced, under the direction of Dr. 
H. Ayers, a paper entitled, " Studies on 
the Primitive Axial Segmentation of the 
Chick," which was published as No. 4, of 
vol. xvii., of the Bulletin. Miss Piatt 
has published also a paper in the Zoo- 
lozischer Anzeiger on " The Anterior Head 
Cavities of Acanthias." 

Miss Annie Parker Henchman, another 
Annex girl, prepared a paper on " The 
Origin and Development of the Central 
Nervous System in Limax Maximus, " 
which is to be found in the Bulletin of the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology. 

A more important monograph on 



Higher Specialised Work 



American history tharn that recently pre- 
pared by Miss Marion Harwood Gleason 
(now Mrs. H. C. McDougall) has not 
been published in years. It treats of 
"Fugitive Slaves" (1619-1865). The au- 
thor gives an account of the legislation 
respecting fugitives from service or labour, 
and of the principal fugitive slave cases, 
from early colonial times to the abolition 
of slavery in 1865. The work is based 
upon the literature of slavery contained in 
the collections of Harvard College and the 
great Boston libraries, and upon an exam- 
ination of the colonial, state and national 
legislation on the subject. Mrs. McDou- 
gall spent much time in the libraries at 
Washington, where every facility was at 
her hand. In the judgment of the pro- 
fessor under whose direction the investi- 
gation was made, this monograph is " a 
careful and probably a final discussion of 
an interesting phase of the slavery ques- 
tion, heretofore little studied, and will be 
a storehouse for future historians. " The 
more important cases are described in 
detail and others are grouped in an appen- 

89 



The American Girl at College 



dix. There is also a valuable appendix 
of legislation, and another of bibliography. 
No efforts have been spared to make the 
work complete, and to treat the subject 
in a scientific manner. This invaluable 
work has occupied parts of three succes- 
sive years. 

Historical monographs of the same 
grade are being prepared by other women, 
and in several cases the instructor proposes 
recommending them for publication. No- 
table in this line of research is the mono- 
graph by an Annex girl. Miss Follet, on 
" The Speaker of the House." Valuable 
also is that historical study on the " Veto- 
ing Power of the President," which estab- 
lished the reputation of Lucy -Maynard 
Salmon, the able Professor of History 
in her alma mater, Vassar. All special 
works of the Annex in these lines are like 
the "Harvard Historical Monographs," 
and are to be carefully edited by Prof. 
Albert Bushnell Hart, who regards them as 
permanent contributions to the literature 
of American history. 

The Publication Fund of Harvard An- 

90 



Higher Specialised Work 



nex preserved the prize essay by Lucy 
Allen Paton, on the " Personal Character 
of Dante as revealed in his Writing." In 
regard to Miss Paton 's work, Prof. 
Charles Eliot Norton, upon whose judg- 
ment the award was made, wrote: "It is 
the essay of a thoughtful and accom- 
plished student, excellent alike in design 
and execution. It is full of sympathy 
and knowledge. It shows maturity of 
mind and gives evidence of more than 
youthful experience of feeling. It has 
the quietness and modesty of strength." 

In scientific research two Vassar gradu- 
ates, Mrs. Elizabeth Gifford Peckham 
and Anna Isabella Mulford, have gained 
honourable distinction. The former is 
the author of numerous papers contributed 
to higher specialised periodicals. Her 
work on the " Protective Resemblances 
in Spiders" is an authority. Mrs. Mul- 
ford is a professor of botany and the 
author of " A Study of Bacteria." 

New results of considerable value in 
biology have been reached in the labora- 
tory of Bryn Mawr by the investigations 

91 



The American Girl at College 



of Harriet Randolph, a fellow in biology 
of that college. They were published 
in the Zoolozischer Anzeiger of Leipsic. 
Equally interesting is " The Parallelisms 
of the Anglo-Saxon Genesis," by Kathar- 
ine Merrill, A.B. and a fellow in English 
at Bryn Mawr. This study appeared in 
the Modern Language Notes. 

The highest honour in the gift of that 
conservative institution, Johns Hopkins 
University, the degree of Doctor of Phi- 
losophy, has been bestowed upon Miss 
Florence Bascora. When her case was 
presented to the board, there was not a 
dissenting voice in the faculty, which had 
at first strenuously opposed her admission 
to the University. Four degrees from 
the University of Wisconsin, of which her 
father was formerly president, preceded 
Miss Bascom's entrance to Johns Hop- 
kins. Petrology, a comparatively new 
branch of geological science, is the 
specialty to which Miss Bascom will de- 
vote her energies. This is the subject of 
her thesis. Petrology is the only means 
of discovering by microscopic examina- 

92 



Higher Specialised Work 



tion the past history of rocks that have 
been changed by heat. One of the finest 
pieces of field work ever accompHshed in 
this country was done by Miss Bascom 
last summer in the South Mountain Dis- 
trict of Pennsylvania. She made her 
headquarters alone at the only tavern in 
the district, and daily with hammer and 
chisel went forth to explore the neighbour- 
ing mountains. She made a map of the 
complicated mountain district. The re- 
sult of her field-work was made the subject 
of an extended paper by Professor Wil- 
liams in a recent number of the Ameri- 
can Journal of Science. Miss Bascom 's 
study in petrology began at the Wis- 
consin University under Professor Ir- 
ving, a nephew of Washington Irving. A 
professorship at Bryn Mawr has been 
offered Miss Bascom on the condition 
that she devote two years more to study 
abroad. Although not yet thirty years 
old, she has decided to put her knowledge 
to a bread-winning test. To this end she 
has accepted the chair of petrology in 
connection with the geological department 

93 



The American Girl at College 



of the Ohio State University, under the 
direction of the conscientious geologist 
and accomplished gentleman, Prof. Edwin 
Orton. All women colleges are in close 
communication with the meteorological 
bureaus and contribute largely to home 
and foreign astronomical journals. As 
has been stated elsewhere, college-bred 
women are employed as computers in the 
observatories at Harvard and Yale. 

The facts that led to Professor Pick- 
ering's recent theory as to double stars 
were discovered by Miss Murray of Har- 
vard. The sociological problems of the 
day are evoking specialised research in 
sanitation, domestic science and domes- 
tic service, the results of which belong- 
more properly perhaps to the practical 
outcome of scientific training. 

94 



CHAPTER VIII 

PRESIDENTIAL SILHOUETTES 

THE colleges for women in America 
are the inspiration and the fruition 
of the herculean struggles of a hardy band 
of New England women v/ho pined, in the 
sterile atmosphere of narrow traditions 
for a taste of the Tree of Knowledge. 
Poor in purse, rich in faith, they longed to 
widen their horizon by the cultivation of 
their minds, expecting to find in this larger 
culture broader opportunity for the devel- 
opment of the spiritual and for the inde- 
pendence of the material life. None knew 
better than Mary Lyon, the heroic founder 
of Mt. Holyoke, the struggles of the early 
women of New England to better their 
material condition by intellectual means. 
School teaching in the humblest way was 
then the only avenue open to women. 
Seventy-five cents a week and " board 
around" was the salary of the accepted 

95 



The American Girl at College 



New England schoolmarm, when Mary 
Lyon resolved to found a school for " the 
middle class who have moderate means 
and large aspirations." Despite the fact 
that the higher education of to-day is 
solely the offspring of womanly longings 
and endeavours, two qnly of the foremost 
colleges are at present under the exclu- 
sive control of women. 

Excepting Mt. Holyoke and Smith, all 
were founded and endowed chiefly by 
men. The faculty of Smith, Vassar and 
Bryn Mawr is composed about equally of 
men and women professors, while Mt. 
Holyoke and Wellesley still cling to 
women professors, although struggling 
to reach the healthier condition insep- 
arable from a mixed faculty. Harvard 
Annex, basking in the wisdom, of seventy- 
five Harvard professors, is not desirous of 
change. 

The presidents of Vassar, Smith, Bryn 
Mawr and the Baltimore College are min- 
isters, while the daughters of ministers 
control the fortunes of Mt. Holyoke and 
Wellesley. Unique again is Harvard An- 

96 



Presidential Silhouettes 



nex, in having for its able director an 
ex-banker and man of letters, the de- 
scendant of a long and illustrious line of 
educators. 

Five ministers have presided at Vassar 
since its foundation. The present popu- 
lar incumbent, Dr. James Monroe Taylor, 
has occupied the chair for five years. 
Descendant of a prolific family of Baptist 
ministers and educators, Dr. Taylor was 
born in Brooklyn in 1848. In the Uni- 
versity and Seminary of Rochester, and 
by travel abroad, he equipped himself for 
practical ministerial work, and for the 
position he now holds. 

Dr. Taylor is a frequent contributor to 
religious reviews, and active membership 
in the school boards of Connecticut and 
Rhode Island lends breadth to his present 
administration. A young man of attrac- 
tive presence and magnetic manner, he is 
popular with faculty and students, and 
his judicious and politic measures have 
preserved the dignity of Vassar, once 
threatened by the not ill-natured carica- 
turing of the popular press. 

97 



The American Girl at College 



The happy mediator between the presi- 
dent and the "fair Vassar girl," is the 
lady principal, Mrs. Kendrick, widow of 
a former president. 

The presiding genius of Smith is its 
organiser, Dr. L. Clark Seelye, one of the 
ablest educators of America, as well as the 
most urbane and cautious if not progres- 
sive of men. Dr. Seelye is refreshingly 
simple and suggestive. The growth of 
Smith from fourteen to six hundred and 
fifty students in sixteen years is no less a 
marvel to its president than to the advo- 
cates of higher education. 

Dr. Seelye is a brother of the former 
president of Amherst College. He was 
born in Connecticut in 1837, and educated 
at Union College, Andover Seminary, and 
the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg. 
Ordained to the Congregational ministry 
he subsequently filled for eight years the 
chair of English and oratory at Amherst 
College, from which he resigned in 1875, 
to organise Smith College on the lines 
indicated by its donor, Sophia Smith, a 
spinster at Hatfield, Massachusetts. 

98 



Presidential Silhouettes 



Dr. Seelye is thoroughly in sympathy 
with woman's advancement on conserva- 
tive lines and keenly alive and appreci- 
ative of her opportunities, and, while 
cautious as to establishing a precedent, 
he is ever ready to respond to healthy 
progress. 

Personally he is the typical New Eng- 
land clergyman, with kindly eyes and a 
well-defined beardless mouth responsive 
to humour, and hair and whiskers of 
auburn hue. To a gentle voice is added 
an inviting manner. 

"I have frequently been asked," said 
Dr. Seelye, " if higher education would 
not eventually engender in women a dis- 
like or repugnance to marriage. One of 
my greatest difficulties has been to post- 
pone marriage among our women faculty. 
No sooner do we get an exceptionally 
clever woman professor and congratulate 
ourseives on the possession, than she 
marries and leaves us. I recollect once 
citing this fact to an inquiring gentleman, 
and quoting the career of Miss Alice 
Freeman, then Wellesley's brilliant presi- 

99 



The American Girl at College 



dent, as a possible case where a woman 
might become so absorbed in her work 
as to be incapable of disloyalty in this 
respect. Returning from Europe a couple 
of months after this declaration I met the 
same gentleman. ' Have you heard the 
news?' he asked. ' Miss Freeman has 
married Professor Palmer of Harvard!' " 
This marriage of its president in 1888 
was a loss to Wellesley, for she was a 
woman who united to broad scholarship 
and progressive views marked executive 
a-bility and a singularly attractive person- 
ality. But in the organiser of the mathe- 
matical department of Wellesley a fit- 
ting successor was found. Daughter of 
a minister, Miss Helen A. Shafer early 
distinguished herself at Oberlin College, 
from which she graduated in 1863. It 
is interesting to note that both of Wel- 
lesley's presidents were educated at 
co-educational institutions, Mrs. Palmer 
being a graduate of Michigan University. 
Miss Shafer taught in the high school of 
St. Louis a number of years before going 
to Wellesley, where she brought the un- 



100 



Presidential Silhouettes 



popular department of mathematics to a 
high level— no easy task, since feminine 
minds have always been suspected of a 
disjtaste for mathematics. This aversion 
is largely attributable to the ineffective 
teaching in the preparatory schools, and 
it pursues the girl into college. Under Miss 
Shafer's professorship, mathematics be- 
came the most popular study at Wellesley. 
Many brilliant girls elected it throughout 
their course and did exceptionally good 
work. As president Miss Shafer has done 
much to strengthen the internal organisa- 
tion of the college. Strong in the respect 
and loyalty of her constituency, her high 
standards, fairness, breadth, and progres- 
sive ideas have stimulated Wellesley's 
later growth. Her administration is most 
democratic. Her policy with the students 
is liberal, for She believes that in this way 
alone can character be developed. Under 
her administration the cottage system has 
been extended, the graduate work of 
the college greatly developed, and the 
courses of study have become more elastic 
by the extension of the elective system. 

lOI 



The American Girl at College 



" I am encouraging our art students to 
follow architecture as a profession," said 
Miss Shafer. " Many take to it kindly. 
The success of women employed to design 
for the World's Fair building has awak- 
ened interest, and we have now three 
young women who, I hope, will become 
architects." 

President James E. Rhoads of Bryn 
Mawr comes of a distinguished family of 
Philadelphia. Conservative, yet progres- 
sive, within the pale of the Friends' pre- 
cepts, he enters heartily into all questions 
of the day, and the spirit of Bryn Mawr 
is delightfully unrestrained. The lever 
of the institution, however, is Miss M. 
Carey Thomas, the Dean. Bryn Mawr 
is the only woman's college that has a 
dean, and she is a Ph. D. At Cornell 
University, Johns Hopkins, Leipsic, Zu- 
rich and the Sorbonne, Miss Thomas took 
degrees before assuming her position at 
Bryn Mawr. She is of medium size, a 
dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome woman, 
in whom every student has a counsellor 
and friend. At the opening of the Uni- 

I02 



Presidential Silhouettes 



varsity of Pennsylvania to women, Miss 
Thomas made the address; an exceptional 
honour to an exceptional woman. 

Mr. Arthur Oilman, the originator and 
active promoter of the Harvard Annex, 
and his wife, formerly principal of Brad- 
ford Academy, which was established in 
1803 and is the oldest institution for wo- 
men in Massachusetts, embody the spirit 
of this remarkable seat of learning. The 
Annex is under the control of a board of 
women managers, of which Mrs. Professor 
Agassiz is the distinguished president. 

Professor Oilman was born in Illinois 
and educated at St. Louis and New York. 
Impaired health compelled him to turn 
from banking to philanthropic and edu- 
cational work. Removing to Cambridge 
in 1870, he connected himself with the 
Riverside Press, and six years later, with 
his wife, devised the plan of Harvard 
Annex. From the most primitive begin- 
ning this dream of their life has developed 
with a success unparalleled in its way. 
Professor Oilman retains the enthusiasm 
of his earliest days. His special line of 

103 



The American Girl at College 



study is literature and history, and his 
contributions to the periodic press and 
the bookmaking world are extensive. 
His best-known works are a " History of 
the American People," "Shakespeare's 
Morals," "The Poetical Works of Geoffry 
Chaucer," and contributions to "The 
Story of the Nations" series. Many 
members of the Gilman family have been 
identified with Harvard College, and in 
Fay House, the seat of the Annex, hangs 
the original copy of the song " Fair Har- 
vard," composed by the Rev. Samuel Gil- 
man on the two hundredth anniversary 
of the founding of Harvard University. 
Professor Gilman is low-voiced, dark- 
eyed, graceful, and an able educator. No 
less interesting are the seven ladies who 
assist him in the direction of the Annex, 
Mrs. Louise Agassiz, Mrs. E.W. Gurney, 
Mrs. J. P. Cooke, Mrs. J. B. Green, Mrs. 
Arthur Gilman, Miss Alice M. Longfellow 
(daughter of the poet) and Miss Lillian 
Horsford. 

Last but not least is the accomplished 
president of Mt. Holyoke, Mrs. Elizabeth 

104 



Presidential Silhouettes 



Storrs Meade, who presided last year at 
the first commencement since this pioneer 
seminary obtained its charter of collegiate 
dignity. She is the daughter of a min- 
ister and the widow of a minister, and for 
four years was a successful professor at 
Oberlin College. All her earliest sur- 
roundings were marked by culture and 
refinement, and extended visits abroad 
gave her the air of the well-bred woman 
of the world. She is quick to sympathise, 
and ready to mould the character of the 
young women in her charge. Woman's 
higher advancement is near to her heart. 
A dark-eyed, dark-haired woman she 
has the savoir-faire that lends superior 
charm to superior character. In her keep- 
ing Mt. Holyoke as a college can scarcely 
fail to increase the influence of its fifty 
years, which made possible the birth of 
Vassar, Smith, Wellesley and Bryn Mawr. 

105 



CHAPTER IX 

CO-EDUCATION 

WHILE the higher education for the 
American girl is a recognised 
demand, the best means to its attainment 
remains a mooted question. The solution 
it would seem lies chiefly in the temper- 
ament and environment of the individual 
seeking collegiate training. 

Advanced educators at home and abroad 
recognise as a radical defect in our whole 
educational system the tendency to over- 
charge the mind, at the expense of train- 
ing it to think and act for itself. The 
corner-stone of the structure being de- 
fective, it behooves the cautious girl 
to consider well her individual wants, be- 
fore assuming collegiate dignity. If a 
girl has a college bent it is a serious 
question, whether she should seek higher 
intellectual development in a woman's 
college or at a co-educational institution. 

io6 



Co-education 

A strictly feminine atmosphere is irre- 
futably a vital essential to the best physical 
and mental development of many girls. In 
the close companionship of their kind they 
find the stimulus to work out the best that 
is in them to their individual satisfaction 
and happiness. Especially indispensable 
is this feminine atmosphere to girls to 
whom public-school association is un- 
known. To all such temperaments, and 
they are by no means rare or unhealthy, 
a woman's college is indispensable. On 
the other hand, it is thought that the 
vigour and the competition of co-educa- 
tional training meet the inner wants and 
the outer demands of a large number 
of American girls, as the attendance at 
these institutions seems to attest. The 
United States has three hundred and fifty- 
seven colleges of liberal arts.. Of these 
two hundred and seventeen admit women, 
while of thirty-two independent colleges 
endowed with national land grants, twenty 
report students of both sexes, thus giving 
a total of two hundred and thirty-seven co- 
educational colleges. The grand total of 

107 



The American Girl at College 



women students enrolled in all institutions 
in the United States affording a higher 
education to women is, according to the 
latest unpublished statistics, thirty-six 
thousand three hundred and twenty-nine. 
Our State universities are but the higher 
extension of the public-school system. 
Despite their close relation to the State, 
they have developed a distinct organ- 
ism as well as a distinct character. The 
whole policy originated in the ordinance 
of 1787 which gave to the Ohio Com- 
pany large land grants as a public edu- 
cational trust. It remained, however, 
for the Morrill Act of 1862, which gave 
thirty thousand acres of land to each State, 
for the purpose of endowing at least one 
college, to precipitate the present unpar- 
alleled educational activity. This mag- 
nificent gift not only aided fifty colleges 
and universities but gave birth to at least 
thirty-three. The State universities are 
the inevitable channels through which a 
large number of women strive to attain a 
higher education. Later statistics show 
that there are eleven thousand seven 

108 



Co-education 

hundred and eighteen women students en- 
rolled in the co-educational universities 
and colleges in the United ^States. The 
most conservative institutions — ^Yale, 
Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, 
Johns Hopkins, etc., have opened their 
degrees to women on equal footing with 
men, as quickly as the girls developed the 
disposition and proved the capacity to 
meet the requirements of the university 
curriculum. 

The reasons advanced at home and 
abroad for and against co-educational in- 
stitutions are numerous, and many of 
them unreasonable and absurd. Time 
will doubtless develop for America the 
best means to the desired end. Mean- 
while, it is well to consider facts at 
hand. Two educational methods pre- 
vail in our co-educational institutions. 
Collegiate co-education was first intro- 
duced in the United States at Oberlin 
College in 1833. It had not its origin in 
any radically new idea of the sphere and 
work of women. The movement in this 
direction is a later development. The 

109 



The American Girl at College 



work at Oberlin, however, has been more 
or less modified since by the general 
change of view upon this subject. The 
original idea was to bring young men and 
young women together in the college after 
the fashion of the New England Academy. 
It began with a female department under 
the supervision of a lady principal. Pre- 
paratory classes composed of boys and 
girls continued, to quote the president, 
" because it was more economical and in- 
teresting. " The basis of woman's crea- 
tion was economy. Every advance since 
made by her has been, if history and 
observation are to be trusted, the result 
of economic measures. Simultaneous 
with the establishment of preparatory 
classes, a" Ladies' Course" was introduced 
to give young women the privilege of 
higher education. 

Inevitably they found their way as 
early as 1837 to regular college classes. 
Without definite intention the system of 
co-education was thus established at 
Oberlin. There was no flourish of trum- 
pets over the achievement. In 1875 



no 



Co-education 

" Female" and " Ladies' Department" dis- 
appeared from the college catalogues. 
The identity of the Ladies' Department 
was lost in the Literary Course opened to 
young men, which tended to dispel from 
the public mind the idea that Oberlin had 
a young ladies' seminary more or less 
connected with the college. Oberlin as- 
serts that it has not and never had a 
special ladies' department as far as classes 
and courses of study are concerned. It 
still retains, hdwever, what it has always 
had, a special department for the govern- 
ment of the young ladies. Since 1836, 
this department has been under the 
charge of a lady principal and a lady 
board of managers. No woman student 
is ever summoned before the general 
faculty in matters of discipline. No 
appeal from the lady board to the faculty 
has ever been made nor has there ever 
been a conflict of authority. While 
Oberlin has influenced the extension of 
this system of instruction, co-education 
as now pursued in many of the large 
schools, especially the State universities, is 

III 



The American Girl at College 



not identical with that which Oberlin has 
maintained for more than a half-century. 

Oberlin has never maintained, as have, 
some latter co-educational institutions, 
that men and women were just alike and 
have the same outlook or duties in life, or 
that consequently they should be trained 
for the same careers. 

It assumes, however, that the same book 
knowledge is good for both sexes, and 
that it is good for them to receive it in 
the same classes, on the principle that 
the sexes at home and abroad receive 
bread in common from a common table. 
On the other hand, it imposes limitations 
upon the associations of young men and 
women not found in many co-educational 
schools. For instance, students are never 
permitted to meet in literary societies or 
other voluntary associations without the 
presence of a teacher. Competition is 
never stimulated by publishing students' 
marks. Young women are not permitted 
to receive social calls from young men, 
students or non-students, after eight 
o'clock. Women students must retire not 

112 



Co-education 

later than nine, wliile men may stay up 
until ten p.m. Some seven hundred and 
fifty women students have quarters in the 
college hall or among families of the 
town, between whom and the lady princi- 
pal there is hearty sympathy and co-oper- 
ation. Primitive as these restrictions 
appear on the face, the type of men and 
women Oberlin has equipped, a large pro- 
portion of whom are distinguished in the 
industries and the arts, and the high 
moral tone of the community it has gen- 
erated and still fosters in the town of 
Oberlin, together with the large number 
of successful educational institutions for 
which it has served as a model, eloquently 
demonstrate the efficacy of its policy. 

The second system of co-education is 
embodied in the State university. It 
seems to recognise no difference in the 
needs of men and women. The doors 
are open alike to all. Ann Arbor makes 
a distinction solely in its medical school. 
In anatomy, lectures and the dissecting 
room there is a separation of the sexes. 
Opened in 1870 to women, Ann Arbor is 

113 



The American Girl at College 



largely credited with the liberalising of 
the higher education in the United States, 
since it was first to accredit high schools 
by accepting their diplomas as sufficient 
for admission. 

Women like men prefer those colleges 
which supply their special needs most 
agreeably and at the least expense. That 
thousands find this in co-educational col- 
leges, the constantly increasing number 
of women attending these institutions 
proves. Women's colleges thrive most 
in the East, where co-educational institu- 
tions of equal merit, until a quite recent 
date, did not exist. 

It is a curious fact, that of the five 
foremost women colleges only two have 
women presidents, and these, Mt. Hol- 
yoke and Wellesley, have always been 
under the authority of women — women in 
both instances who received their training 
at co-educational colleges. Men are now 
being added rapidly to the faculties of 
women's colleges. The wisdom of the 
movement is already discernible. It can- 
not fail to produce a healthier, more nat- 

114 



Co-education 

ural and independent tone, and to broaden 
the mental horizon, enabling the B. A. 
and M. A. of the future to counteract 
many unfavourable impressions made 
by earlier college-bred women upon the 
observant and the thoughtful. To ac- 
cept or discuss a fact or observation 
advanced or deduced from a natural or 
ethical standpoint not in strict accordance 
with the teaching of their respective 
colleges was exceptional if not impossible 
to some of the earliest graduates of our 
women's schools. Large and liberal cul- 
ture, the best corrective perhaps of the 
tendency to take petty views of things, 
— a culture especially to be desired for 
women on whom it devolves to give the 
tone to society, — was not characteristic 
of our early exponents of higher edu- 
cation. 

" Since in the conventional manner of 
the transmission of science, in its pre- 
paratory studies in the entire range of 
universities," wisely argues Miss E. 
Davis, advocating the higher education 
of women in England, " there are, accord- 

115 



The American Girl at College 



ing to a common judgment, so many 
points in which reforms are needed, it is 
pitiable to think that women will have to 
walk the old, wornout, roundabout roads 
when shorter and much better paved 
roads might pleasantly lead them to their 
goal." To America the old world looks 
to-day for the discovery of the short cut 
to this desired Mecca. The most health- 
ful and prophetic stimulus, in this great 
transitory period through which we are 
passing, dimly conscious of its import to 
the future, is the eagerness and the liber- 
ality with which all our educational insti- 
tutions consider and test new methods 
and ideas. 

Present indications point to Vassar, 
Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr or the Uni- 
versity of Chicago, as the possible site 
of the perfect fruition of woman's higher 
education. A veritable modern Jupiter 
is this latest and most stupendous expres- 
sion of the educational impulse of the day, 
— the Chicago University. It is the only 
university in the history of the world that 
included in its very conception the equal 

ii6 



Co-education 

educational rights and privileges of wo- 
man. 

Unhampered by tradition or precedent, 
with a wealth unknown to classic times, 
and an enterprise, energy, and catholicity 
inseparable from the age and the locality, 
it embraces in its faculty savants gathered 
from many countries, and it is confidently 
expected to cut the modern educational 
Gordian knot. The University is organ- 
ised into four distinct divisions, the Uni- 
versity Proper, the University Extension 
Division, the University Libraries and 
Museums, and the University Press. 

The University Proper includes schools, 
academies and colleges. 

It is the first university to call to its 
regular faculty a woman professor, with 
the equal duties and rights of a man pro- 
fessor. Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, the 
ex-president of Wellesley College, a wo- 
man of varied and unique power, holds 
the chair of history and is Dean of women 
in the graduate schools and colleges. 
Professor Palmer resides at the University 
twelve weeks of the year, and in her ab- 

117 



The American Girl at College 



sence retains an active share in the ad- 
ministration. 

Three women hold assistant professor- 
ships: Julia E. Buckley, Assistant Pro- 
fessor of Pedagogy, and Dean (of women) 
in the academic colleges (ordinarily 
known as Freshman and Sophomore), 
Martha Foote Crow, Ph. D., Assistant 
Professor of English Literature, and 
Marion Talbot, A. M., Professor of Sani- 
tary Science and Dean (of women) in the 
university colleges, which embrace the 
Junior and Senior classes. Two women 
as tutors in German and in Physical Cul- 
ture, one University Extension reader in 
Latin, a cataloguer and a librarian com- 
plete the women instructors and officers. 
In the Deans, students find directors and 
counsellors identical with the Lady Princi- 
pal or President. Two dormitory halls 
presided over by ladies provide respec- 
tively a home for two hundred women. 
One of these structures enjoys the distinc- 
tion of being the only institution of this 
kind in the world erected by women for 
women. It is the gift of the women of 

ii8 



Co-education 

Chicago and was erected at a cost of two 
hundred thousand dollars. Public inter- 
est was incited and the fund raised through 
the editorial efforts of Mrs. Margaret F. 
Sullivan of the staff of the Chicago Her- 
ald. Her vigorous, scholarly editorials, 
showing the large sums of money be- 
queathed to men's colleges in all ages by 
women, while institutions for their own 
sex languished i^i the want of financial 
aid, appealed to that aggressive and pro- 
gressive body, the Woman's Club. Head- 
ing the subscription list with one thousand 
dollars, its president, with Margaret Sulli- 
van's hearty co-operation, raised in less 
than two weeks the funds required for the 
erection and equipment of the splendid 
structure which will ever be a substantial 
refutation of the charge that women never 
do anything practical for their own insti- 
tutions. Of forty-three fellows enrolled 
at the University, in this the second year 
of its existence, for extended University 
study, five are women, graduates of Vas- 
sar, Wellesley, Smith and two co-educa- 
tional institutions. Among fifteen hono- 

IIQ 



The American Girl at College 



rary fellows are four women, students of 
Harvard Annex, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, 
Antioch College and the University of 
Wisconsin. Greater than the interest, is 
the responsibility that rests on the women 
associated either as professors or students 
with this unique educational institution. 
Fully equipped by the age which made ' 
possible the conception and execution of 
such an institution as the University of 
Chicago, Alice Freeman Palmer, Martha 
Foote Crow and Marion Talbot,— will not 
fail to rise to the opportunity so signally 
extended to them to help the American 
girl achieve by the simplest and most ef- 
fective means the higher development of 
her higher self. 



1 20 



CHAPTER X 

RELATIVE COST 

THE moral and financial responsibility 
involved in the education of a 
family of modern girls cannot be over- 
estimated. " Educate a woman and you 
educate a nation." More conscientious, 
indulgent parents do not exist, perhaps, 
than those in the average American home. 
Conscience prompts the education of their 
children at all hazards, while pride and 
love urge them to secure such training 
under the most favourable circumstances. 
Despite liberal or modest income, how- 
ever, prudence gives the matter of expense 
precedence over the course of studies in 
selecting a college for the modern daugh- 
ter. Deplorable as this materialism may 
be, the fact is irrefutable. Facts are stub- 
born things and in this instance demand 
stubborn handling if practical value is to 

121 



The American Girl at College 



be derived from a consideration of the 
relative cost of higher education. The 
girl ambitious of college training gener- 
ally has, when the time arrives to decide 
on a college, some definite idea of the 
course she wishes to pursue. Naturally 
courses of study in women colleges and 
co-educational institutions vary in breadth 
and merit. A careful study of college 
catalogues gives a tolerably clear idea of 
the extent and strength of each depart- 
ment. Expenses as foretold in the cata- 
logues, however, are scarcely less delusive 
than similar estimates in Guides to Europe. 
Not unhide the latter they delight in 
round numbers. 

Extras unhappily swell the outlay of a 
college year no less than the cost of a 
Continental outing. The sincerity of col- 
lege catalogues is not questioned. All 
aim to give information within their 
official power, but such power has its limi- 
tations. It falls short this side of extras, 
So various are individual tastes, desires 
and limitations, that experience alone can 
give the exact cost of a college course; 



122 



Relative Cost 

for only experience can initiate a student 
into the possibilities of extras — the rock 
upon which more than one allowance has 
met shipwreck. Each college has a dis- 
tinctive tone, sustained more or less in a 
distinctive manner. This can only be 
learned by contact. So much depends 
upon the taste, wants, exigencies of the 
student as well as the independence of 
will and absorption of aim, that it is im- 
possible to state fairly or definitely the 
relative cost of a college year at any par- 
ticular institution. From a comparative 
study of the catalogues of Vassar, Welles- 
ley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Harvard Annex, 
Mt. Holyoke and The Woman's College, 
personal interviews with college authori- 
ties, chats with students and graduates 
and peeps into their account books, the 
facts here stated have been collected. 

The term bill of the colleges cited aver- 
ages about the same per annum. Only in 
a comparison of the extras and the inci- 
dentals is there a perceptible difference. 
Mt. Holyoke, sustaining the economic 
basis upon which it was founded, offers the 

123 



The American Girl at College 



lowest annual tuition, seventy-five dollars. 
Smith, Bryn Mawrand The Woman's Col- 
legje each charge one hundred dollars, Vas- 
sar one hundred and fifteen dollars, Wel- 
lesley one hundred and fifty dollars, 
while the Annex charges two hundred 
dollars. Co-educational tuition averages 
from nothing to two hundred dollars, 
reaching the highest point at the Massa- 
chusetts Institution of Technology and 
the lowest at the State Universities of 
California, Kansas and Wisconsin. Re- 
ductions are made for special students 
at Vassar, Mt. Holyoke, the Woman's 
College and Bryn Mawr. It is in board, 
lodging, and laundry, and the use of 
laboratory and library that the greatest 
variation of expenses is noted. Vassar 
aims to avoid all extra charges in its 
regular work. With that purpose in view, 
the charge to all students, who reside in 
the college, is four hundred dollars. This 
includes tuition in all college studies, 
board and the washing of one dozen plain 
pieces weekly. This sum also provides 
board during the vacations, which at 

124 



Relative Cost 

Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr and the 
Woman's College involves an additional 
expense at the rate of from six to eight 
and a half dollars per week. This item, to a 
student who comes a long distance and is 
obliged to remain at the college during va- 
cations, is not without importance. Use 
of chemicals, breakage in the laboratory, 
the use of the library and admission to all 
concerts and lectures are also included in 
the four hundred dollars, while chemicals 
and laboratory breakages are extras at 
Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr and the 
Woman's College. An extra nominal 
charge is made at Vassar for medical 
attendance, both for office and private 
consultation. Office consultation is free 
at all other colleges. A student in the 
Infirmary at Vassar is charged at the 
extra rate of a dollar and a half per day, 
which includes regular medical attendance, 
medicine, the services of nurse, and meals. 
Every meal taken to a student's room for 
whatever cause is charged extra. This 
rule prevails at all colleges except at 
Bryn Mawr, where the order of physician 

125 



The American Girl at College 



or mistress exempts the student from fur- 
ther indebtedness. Vassar students sup- 
ply their own towels and napkins for the 
table, and this is required by all other col- 
leges except Bryn Mawr and the Harvard 
Annex. Text-books, stationery, drawing 
utensils, etc. , are to be had at current rates 
here as elsewhere. Music and painting 
and the use of instruments are the luxu- 
ries of all colleges, and involve an aver- 
age additional cost of one hundred dol- 
lars per year. Having neither music nor 
painting schools these extras do not exist 
in Bryn Mawr or the Harvard Annex. 

No college makes deduction for absence 
during the year except in the case of ill- 
ness which renders a student's departure 
imperative. In such cases charges for 
board, varying from six to eight dollars a 
week, are made at all colleges until formal 
notice is given by parent or guardian that 
the student has relinquished her room. 

No difference is made in the charge for 
rooms at Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Mt. 
Holyoke or the Woman's College. The 
cottage plan prevails at Smith and Welles- 

126 



Relative Cost 

ley, and owing to its popularity and the 
insufficient number of cottages to accom- 
modate all, students are permitted to seek 
lodgings in the towns of Northampton and 
Wellesley. Bryn Mawr and the Woman's 
College also allow students to live outside 
the college halls. Whether residence out- 
side the college campus deprives a student 
of the college spirit or atmosphere is dis- 
puted. Certain it is, that outside resi- 
dents impatiently wait a vacancy in the 
cottages. The cost of board and fur- 
nished room in the cottages at Smith and 
Wellesley is two hundred and fifty dollars 
per annum. Board and lodging may be 
had in private families at Northampton at 
rates varying from four to nine dollars a 
week. In special cases lower rates may 
be secured. Six dollars is the average 
price paid by students who live in private 
families. Board and lodging outside the 
dormitories and cottages at Wellesley 
varies from" five to seven dollars a week. 
Prices vary at Bryn Mawr according to lo- 
cation. The lowest amount for board and 
residence in the college halls is two hun^ 

127 



The American Girl at College 



dred and seventy-five dollars, the highest 
four hundred dollars. Residence, exclu- 
sive of board in the college halls, which 
n'^mber three, is from one hundred and 
twenty-five to two hundred and fifty dol- 
lars a year according to location. Bryn 
Mawr does not allow its students to 
share rooms. The cost of board alone 
is one hundred and fifty dollars. 

The Annex has no dormitory nor cot- 
tages. The unrestrained privilege of co- 
educational colleges reigns there, leaving 
the student to seek at pleasure " high 
thinking and plain living" at rates rang- 
ing from six to twelve and fifteen dollars 
a week. 

At the Woman's College two hundred 
dollars covers board, furnished room, 
light, service and laundry. Quarters may 
be had in private families of Baltimore at 
prices varying from three to seven dollars 
per week. 

While a student is perfectly independ- 
ent everywhere in the matter of special 
decoration for her room, and the sum 
spent in this way need not be large, 

128 



Relative Cost 

woman's innate aesthetic sense stimu- 
lated by the inevitable rivalry makes the 
average student's room a source of ex- 
pense rarel)^, if ever, considered by a girl 
contemplating a college course. The 
outlay in room decoration runs from five 
to one hundred 'dollars in the four years. 
It depends entirely upon the student's 
allowance. In these days of draperies, 
cushions, divans and the indispensable tea- 
table there is no limit to the possibilities 
in this direction. The account book of a 
Vassar graduate of 1893 discloses the fact 
that the decoration of her room outside 
of pictures cost seventy-five dollars, but 
she adds that many of her class have scarce- 
ly expended ten dollars throughout the 
course. This same account book reveals, 
under the head of sundries, ninety-seven 
dollars and seventy-five cents for one 
year's extra laundry, stationery and books. 
The expense in room decoration has 
greatly decreased at Vassar since the re- 
furnishing of the house last year. The 
new hall opened in January is so com- 
pletely furnished by the college that a 

129 



The American Girl at College 



student needs only a desk and hangings 
to make her " den" complete. The rooms 
at Bryn Mawr are complete in the com- 
forts and the luxuries of the most fastid- 
ious taste. No lamp, desk, table, arm- 
chair, nor supplies of any kind need be 
brought by the student. While all the 
rooms are sufficiently heated by steam, an 
open fire-place, with which all high-priced 
rooms are provided, may impart a home 
glow at an additional cost. 

No service is required from students at 
Vassar or Bryn Mawr. Coloured maids 
are at the students' command. Smith 
exacts from each student the care of her 
room. Students wait on the tables at 
Wellesley and assist in various clerical 
and household duties not to exceed forty 
minutes per day. Division of service at 
Wellesley tends to lower the expenses of 
students who reside in the cottages. 

Another unexpected extra is class and 
society fees. The average sum expended 
at most colleges is fifteen dollars. The 
amount depends altogether upon how 
deeply a girl goes into- this modern devel- 

130 



Relative Cost 

opment of college life, for there is no limit 
to the number of societies. Society organi- 
sations at Smith, however, are restricted in 
number, and to one only is a student per- 
mitted membership. The initiation fee is 
one dollar; the yearly tax an additional 
dollar. The cost of entertainments given 
by the different classes which make up the 
social life is defrayed by the class taxes. 
These vary from Freshman to Senior year. 
From twelve to fifteen dollars is the esti- 
mated amount expended during the four 
years. The parties given by the various 
cottages throughout the year are simple 
affairs involving a trifling expense. In- 
dividual taxes for house dramatic per- 
formances and tennis courts scarcely 
exceed two dollars a year. While there 
are a number of lectures and concerts 
throughout the course free to students, 
there are as many more to which admis- 
sion is charged. Fewer temptations in 
this respect prevail at Smith, perhaps, 
than at Vassar or Wellesley. 

Occasional concerts, lectures and plays 
are irresistible temptations to Vassar, 

131 



The American Girl at College 



Wellesley or Bryn Mawr girls, whose close 
proximity to New York, Boston and Phil- 
adelphia renders this indulgence easy 
while it has no tendency to decrease the 
extras. Railroad fares enter largely into 
a student's expense, especially if the dis- 
tance is great and vacations find her 
homeward bound. A Vassar girl living 
within seven hundred miles of Pough- 
keepsie, who spends the Christmas holi- 
days at home, estimates her travelling 
expenses at one hundred dollars a year. 

The total charge at Mt. Holyoke is two 
hundred dollars. This college leads in 
economy of outlay, followed closely by the 
Woman's College. Bryn Mawr and the 
Harvard Annex are the most expensive, 
with Vassar in close proximity. An 
Annex girl confesses that by the most 
rigid economy she pulled through one 
year on eight hundred dollars. Wellesley 
and Smith are about equal, with economic 
margin, if any, in favour of the latter. 
A Wellesley student states that five hun- 
dred dollars covered her entire expenses 
last year. Eight hundred dollars is the 

132 



Relative Cost 

average at Vassar, while from eight hun- 
dred to one thousand dollars and often 
fifteen hundred dollars make life delight- 
ful at Bryn Mawr. 

Debarring extras and incidentals this is 
the ratio at the women's colleges in round 
numbers: 

Mt. Holyoke $200.00 

Woman's College 300.00 

Wellesle)/ 380.00 

Smith 350.00 

Vassar 400.00 

Bryn Mawr 475.00 

Co-educational. 

Tuition. 

Boston University $100.00 

Cornell 100.00 

University of Michigan 20.00 

Northwestern University 40.00 

Oberlin College 45.00 

Syracuse , . . 60.00 

Wesleyan 75-00 

A subject which often confronts the 
student with embarrassment is the toilet. 

At Bryn Mawr and the Woman's Col- 
lege, the gown and mortar board are obli- 
gatory, while at the other colleges, with 

133 



The American Girl at College 



the exception of the Seniors who wear 
them on special occasions, as Tree Day at 
Wellesley, or Commencement at Harvard 
Annex, the greatest independence prevails 
in dress. This very independence is mis- 
leading to a Freshman. College authori- 
ties and graduates are wont to reiterate 
that a girl requires no more or less dress 
at college than at home. No less sweep- 
ing than unsatisfactory is this assertion, 
since students come now from fashionable 
homes as frequently as country firesides. 
Elaborate dressing is not encouraged, and 
as the tendency up to date has not been 
in that direction, a happy medium prevails 
in most colleges. The girl who leaves a 
luxuriant home and fashionable social 
circles will do well to judiciously weed 
out of her college wardrobe all gowns of 
ceremony or pronounced ball-room type. 
On the other hand, the country or city 
bred girl to whom a ball or party is a 
memory or an anticipation, and an " at 
home" in other than the plainest street 
gowns is an unknown indulgence, will not 
fail to provide herself at the outset with at 

134 



Relative Cost 

least two light-tinted gala robes. Remem- 
bering that taste rather than purse gives 
the charm to a toilet, the prevalence of in- 
expensive pretty stuffs now makes a gala 
gown possible to the most modest allow- 
ance. Consider the social occasions of 
college life, then trust to common sense 
and individual taste in preparing the 
Freshman wardrobe. One year's assimi- 
lation of the college atmosphere will be 
a safe guide in matters of dress for the 
remaining college course. 

Vassar gives two annual balls which re- 
quire full dress. Whether a girl wears 
the same gown to both balls depends upon 
her purse. Friday, Saturday and Sunday 
evenings generally find the students in 
pretty dinner or reception gowns. " Three 
gowns for recitation will last me a year," 
writes a Vassar girl of liberal income. 
" One needs also a good winter street suit, 
and in the spring a similar gown of lighter 
weight. I have besides these three or 
four dinner gowns that vary the evening 
'at home ' and serve for club entertain- 
ments or concert outings in the town." 

135 



The American Girl at College 



Light dresses are worn a great deal at 
Wellesley. More variety of toilet prevails 
there than elsewhere. The greater num- 
ber in attendance emphasises perhaps 
this refreshing feature of the college en- 
semble. The chapel and concert hall 
being under the same roof that shelters a 
large portion of the community, mid-win- 
ter permits students, especially on Sunday 
and Monday evenings, to assume pretty 
festive gowns. Numerous are the occa- 
sions when the college blossoms like a 
huge flower-garden. Elaborate society 
costumes are rarely seen. Esthetic in- 
dividual gowns predominate, often of the 
wearer's own design and fabrication, 
representing but a modest expenditure of 
money. The Junior Promenade or Garden 
Party is Wellesley's great dress occasion. 
The first fete of college life here as at 
Smith is the Sophomores' reception to the 
Freshmen. Later the Juniors entertain 
their younger sisters. " Tree Day" is an- 
other gala occasion of the Freshman year 
that calls forth pretty toilets. The Fresh- 
men are initiated into college social tactics 

136 



Relative Cost 

by serving as ushers, etc., at upper class 
receptions. With the Sophomore year 
college life begins to take on a distinctive 
social aroma. On Saturday evenings, 
class-room dresses are discarded for pretty 
house robes in which students attend the 
meetings of Greek letter, literary, politi- 
cal economy or sociological clubs held in 
the rooms allotted to them. Commence- 
ment week at all colleges involves more 
or less additional expense of toilet. A 
gymnasium suit is now imperative at all 
colleges, while tennis suits are indispen- 
sable. A Wellesley senior, whose gowns 
always bespoke the lady, says that fifty 
dollars represented the cost of her last 
year's college wardrobe. While economy 
in the toilet has little or no tendency to 
detract from the student's popularity or 
esteem, expenditure in dress will naturally 
increase in proportion as daughters of 
wealth aspire to the collegiate training now 
so auspiciously opened to them by the 
pioneer efforts of the daughters of the poor. 
The first dress affair at Smith occurs in 
October when the Sophomores tender the 

137 



The American Girl at College 



Freshmen a reception. The latter are 
escorted by the former in carriages, del- 
uged with flowers and bestow and receive 
the flattering attentions so long the privi- 
lege of the masculine gallant. The great 
full-dress affair, the only one to which men 
are invited, is reserved for Washington's 
birthday. Numerous informal entertain- 
ments in the cottages have popularised at 
Smith light-tinted, inexpensive gowns. 

Cap and gown at Bryn Mawr and the 
Woman's College make unnecessary the 
special dress for commencement and all 
formal class gatherings. Most of the 
occasions that receive special toilet con- 
sideration at Bryn Mawr are independent 
of college life proper. The proximity of 
Philadelphia and the freedom with which 
gentlemen are permitted to call at the 
cottages give a larger and more varied 
scope to social life, if a student be socially 
inclined. No girl can afford to neglect 
her toilet in or out of college. It is not 
only a personal but a public duty to pre- 
sent at all times the most pleasing and 
attractive appearance. 

138 



Relative Cost 

When nature has not given a woman 
taste in dress it is the duty of education 
to supply it. The college that overlooks 
it does not discharge its whole duty. Now 
that higher education is turning tardy at- 
tention to the development of the physique 
let not its decoration be neglected. Brain- 
workers are proverbially inclined to run 
down at the heels. Intellect and artistic 
dressing have rarely if ever been synony- 
mous. A well-dressed woman, however, is 
always an art-educator. Boston possesses, 
and New York agitates for a committee 
to sit in judgment with the municipal 
authorities on the art works proposed for 
the decoration of the respective cities, 
trusting in this manner to preserve the 
city from bad architecture, painting or 
statuary and consequently to cultivate the 
public taste. Might not a similar com- 
mittee in our women colleges to direct the 
toilet indulgences of students, in whom 
the aesthetic sense as regards their own 
personality is dead or dormant, serve as 
good purpose as the self-governing socie- 
ties of Vassar and Bryn Mawr ? Does the 

139 



The American Girl at College 



American girl live who would yield to a 
surveillance of dress ? American women 
are said to be the best-dressed women in 
the world. 

A glance at a gathering of college-bred 
women, however, rarely fails to reveal how 
little higher education has contributed to 
this international repute. 

140 



CHAPTER XI 

SELF-HELP 

WANT of energy, ambition or health 
may now deprive the American 
girl of a collegiate training; but not want 
of means to defray the expense involved. 
Not unlike that of Yale, Harvard and 
kindred universities, the history of our 
woman colleges is inseparable from the 
struggles and sacrifices of increasing num- 
bers of students seeking higher educa- 
tion, despite the lack of means on their 
part or that of their families. Compara- 
tively little has been said and less is known 
of this phase of the development, owing 
largely to woman's inherent delicacy and 
pride. Long discipline as a dependent 
has given her experience in personal sac- 
rifices and petty economies unknown to 
man, and taught her the value of secretive- 
ness. That a half-century has quickened 
and broadened the spirit that animated 

141 



The American Girl at College 



Mary Lyon and her sturdy followers, the 
correspondence files of all our women col- 
leges attest. 

The eagerness of these aspirants to 
learn how they may earn their way to col- 
lege and through it, and their readiness to 
borrow the necessary funds and assume a 
debt which they know they will be years 
in paying, are convincing proof of the high 
value put upon education by the modern 
woman. Aside from scholarships and 
fellowships which are multiplying on every 
side, and yet are inadequate to meet the 
demands or wholly defray the cost of a 
course, colleges offer various opportunities 
to the industrious, deserving student to 
reduce her expenses; while the clever, 
ingenious girl is always devising original 
schemes to accomplish the desired end. 
Almost tragic and always pathetic are the 
secret deprivations endured by many stu- 
dents who enter college and persevere to 
the end, dependent solely upon their own 
exertions to defray the necessary ex- 
pense. Such efforts are possible only to 
the enthusiast. 

142 



Self-Help 

The physical and mental strain upon 
the student who undertakes to earn half 
the cost of a college course frequently en- 
tails evils which all the scientific train- 
ing acquired is powerless to compensate. 
The wisdom or the folly of these self-im- 
posed sacrifices in the pursuit of knowl- 
edge will always be debatable, though 
they are the means by which many have 
achieved distinction. The fact remains, 
tliat the number of women without means, 
determined to avail themselves of a col- 
lege training, increases each year. 

" Time cannot wither nor custom stale" 
woman's first marketable talent, the fac- 
ulty for teaching. It remains the com- 
monest resource of those who are striving 
to save a little money to enter college. 
Teaching, in the highest sense, is one of 
the least remunerative of the professions. 
As higher education spreads, the standard 
of teaching will advance until desirable 
positions will be open only to women 
holding a degree. 

Happily at this crisis stenography and 
typewriting open a new and promising 

143 



The American Girl at College 



field, enabling many women not only to 
enter college but to largely defray the 
expenses of a course. 

Not unlike other pursuits, however, they 
require great economy if anything is to 
be saved. Less onerous than teaching, 
they offer greater opportunity and afford 
more leisure for study, while the compen- 
sation is better. Interesting in this line 
is the success of a clergyman's daughter 
from the interior of New York State. 
When financial reverses overtook the fam- 
ily great was the solicitude as to the future 
of this daughter, the least competent and 
most dependent member of the household, 
and the only one for whose education no 
provision had been made. Reading in the 
Century magazine the advertisement of 
a firm offering to teach stenography by 
correspondence, the minister's daughter 
applied for instruction. In less than three 
months the firm wrote that their pupil's 
skill had outrun their own, and that if she 
would come to New York they would se- 
cure her a lucrative position. The propo- 
sition was eagerly accepted and the happy 

144 



Self-Help 

girl was installed as secretary to a clergy- 
man, and her collegiate training was sub- 
sequently secured entirely by her own 
exertions. 

Canvassing for subscriptions for papers 
and periodicals which offer prizes, in some 
cases money and in others the direct offer 
of an education at some college for a part 
or the whole of a course, is a recent novel 
method eagerly grasped by a number of 
young women. The vantage-ground of 
the present over the past is conclusively 
shown in the biography of Mary Lyon: 

" With two blue and white coverlets 
spun, dyed and woven by her own hands, 
she paid a winter's board while at Ashfield 
Academy, and the blue fulled cloth habit 
she wore while in Ipswich and Derry was 
the product of her own spinning-wheel and 
loom." 

Invention has long since silenced spin- 
ning-wheel and loom to quicken woman's 
skill in more aesthetic crafts, artistic nee- 
dle-work, china painting, the decoration of 
menu cards, german favours and kindred 
arts. A market for such handiwork is read- 

145 



The American Girl at College 



ily found through the "Woman's Ex- 
change, "established now in all our leading 
cities. In this manner many industrious 
girls not only earn enough above living ex- 
penses to pursue the preparatory course for 
college, but largely defray their expenses, 
by the direct sale of their work to fellow- 
students. There is always a sufficient num- 
ber of wealthy and liberal students ready 
to invest in the skill of a classmate. Com- 
paratively few girls, if living at home, are 
unable to obtain even a full preparation for 
our best colleges without cost to them- 
selves. 

The means of self-help cited refer par- 
ticularly to the exceptional young woman 
who has no home, or whose lot is cast in 
a town which possesses no extended school 
facilities. Once in college the problem of 
self-help assumes a graver aspect. Not 
only is the expense of tuition to be met, 
but provision must be made for board, 
travelling expenses and incidental things, 
inseparable from a large community and 
rarely if ever mentioned in college cata- 
logues. It is to enable students to meet 

146 



Self-Help 

these imperative demands, that scholar- 
ships have been and continue to be sup- 
ported, but, as has been stated, they are 
insufficient in number and amount of 
money, to supply the demand. 

Vassar, Wellesley and other colleges 
have societies of alumnse and friends who 
offer scholarships in the form of loans. 
.These loans as a rule draw no interest 
and are awarded on examination to the 
successful competing candidate. In 
amount they vary in different localities 
from one hundred to four hundred dollars. 

A most independent, if not congenial 
means of self-help, which brings a fair 
monetary return, is now offered by many 
colleges for certain services performed. 
The distribution of mail through a large 
college is work easily committed to a stu- 
dent. It absorbs a comparatively small 
portion of her time, and the money thus 
earned is a substantial aid. 

Another fruitful service is found in the 
line of messenger work : the doing of 
errands between the various departments 
of the college or between them and the 

147 



The American Girl at College 



officers of the administration. Personal 
remuneration is also offered students will- 
ing to copy lists, do other writing and 
various minor duties, inseparable from the 
business of a large college. 

True, these resources are somewhat pre- 
carious, but in the end they amount to 
a very important contribution toward a 
student's expenses. Many young women 
have been known to earn as much as a 
hundred dollars from such occasional ser- 
vices. Private tutoring, however, offers 
to the capable student the most natural 
and congenial means of money-making. 
There are always students who are behind 
in their work and who need outside the 
class room an assistance which the col- 
lege does not provide. The competent 
student has here plenty of congenial work, 
paid for at the rate of fifty cents an hour. 
If the present indications that it will be 
fashionable for stupid daughters of wealth 
to seek higher education, are to be trust- 
ed, tutoring as a means of self-help is 
likely to become as remunerative if not as 
dignified as a professorship itself. 

148 



Self-Help 

Notwithstanding the popularity of tutor- 
ing, it is a time consumer, and this fact 
should not be overlooked by the student 
who contemplates depending largely upon 
it as a help, for not only is time sacrificed 
in teaching but in preparing for the work. 
The student who intends to support her- 
self should prepare to give more than four 
years to her college study, for more or 
less time is consumed by any scheme 
devised as a help to the end. While all 
college libraries are in charge of a skilful 
officer, many opportunities arise necessi- 
tating the employment of aids in copying 
lists, putting up books and taking care of 
the library during certain hours of the 
day. 

These congenial duties are definite in 
time and nature, and the compensation 
offered is sufficient in most colleges to help 
several young women to meet their inci- 
dental expenses. 

More successful than the heroine of 
"A Woman's Reason," was the Vassar 
girl who paid her way to the end by mak- 
ing bonnets. So rapidly did her custom 

149 



The American Girl at College 



increase, that she was only able to devote 
half a year at a time to her studies. 
Blessed with the requisite courage and 
persistence, however, she captured the 
coveted degree. 

A lucrative field, yet unopened, lies be- 
fore the girl clever in mending and touch- 
ing up the odds and ends of a toilet. 
Students' wardrobes are always requiring 
mending and remodelling, and they are 
always ready to employ the assistance of 
the skilful needlewoman. 

Where health and strength suffice for 
continued labour, the summer vacation 
offers varied money-making opportunities. 
The summer hotel invites clerks and 
waitresses. It is questionable whether 
such positions are desirable for a college 
student. It depends largely upon the 
choice of hotel and the temperament of 
the woman. The position of waitress is 
an old crutch to the collegiate aspirant. 
Among women it originated at Mount 
Holyoke, where, coupled with other house- 
hold duties, it was the chief means by 
which pioneer students reduced their ex- 

150 



Self-Help 

penses. So extensively was it pursued 
that Mount Holyoke became known as a 
school where household arts were practi- 
cally taught, and to the present day this 
erroneous impression prevails in many 
localities. 

The role of waitress has long been 
popular at Wellesley. 

Several young women have successfully 
facilitated their way through college by 
having their lives insured. Many capital- 
ists lend largely on insurance policies, a 
life insurance policy being accepted as se- 
curity for certain sums loaned, until such 
a time as the insured can repay the loan. 

Struggles and sacrifices in the course of 
higher education are not confined solely 
to the children of the poor. 

Daughters frequently come, from 
wealthy homes, who have not their fam- 
ilies' sympathy, and who are forced to re- 
sort to work to supply the money withheld 
by their parents. Instances are known 
of such girls who have taught music, 
worked embroidery, canned fruits, made 
jellies and sold them directly or through 

151 



The American Girl at College 



agencies, until the desired funds were se- 
cured. 

A favourite device of the romancer 
finds practical illustration in the college 
girl who work&d her way through the 
course to find at the eleventh hour 
that she had not the wherewithal to pay 
her graduation fees ; off went her splendid 
head of hair, and the coiffeur's ducats sent 
her into the world an independent bachelor 
of science. A college training is worth 
a struggle. It is an investment above 
fluctuating fortune, and in its possession 
one can never be poor. 

Nevertheless it behooves the practical, 
no less than the enthusiastic and the in- 
experienced girl to count well the cost in 
advance. Few things in life vex the spirit, 
or eat into the very warp and woof of 
one's being, so mercilessly as the petty 
anxieties inseparable from an empty purse 
or a precarious way of replenishing it. 

152 



CHAPTER XII 

PRACTICAL OUTCOME 

PROBABLY the college-bred woman 
is the most observed woman of the 
present day. After twenty years of intel- 
lectual gestation she begins to impress her 
individuality on the community. Discus- 
sions of eminent men as to women's mental 
ability, moral and physical status, predi- 
lection for matrimony or fitness for voting 
have been going on for a quarter of a 
century. 

Meanwhile maiden Bachelors of Arts 
and Science have multiplied, until now 
there are some three thousand mature 
women who have had college training, 
and as many more in the heyday of youth, 
all of whom fall under the surveillance of 
a public that ceases not to question the 
practical outcome of this modern innova- 
tion. One by one objections raised from 

153 



The American Girl at College 



the intellectual, moral, physical or matri- 
monial standpoint, have disappeared in the 
light of statistics. To one tangible phase, 
however, the masses cling with a covert 
desire to find in it sufficient evidence to 
outweigh the favourable testimony al- 
ready adduced. 

Of what avail to woman is scientific 
training i What is the practical outcome 
of higher education ? These are questions 
whose reiteration invites deeper investi- 
gation. The marriage ratio, health statis- 
tics, number and physique of the offspring 
of college-bred women attest that, if 
scientific training does not facilitate, it 
certainly does not interfere with the radi- 
cal function of her being. That higher 
education enlarges her opportunities as a 
bread-winner is irrefutable. 

In proportion as the price of skilled 
labour advances, the college-bred woman's 
earnings will undoubtedly increase. Un- 
happily nothing short of an audited 
account in dollars and cents of the earn- 
ings of every college woman in the bread- 
winning world, — earnings the direct out- 

154 



Practical Outcome 



come of knowledge garnered within the 
walls of their alma matei'^ — ^will satisfy a 
large portion of the community that higher 
education has a raison d' etre. 

Coming as it does at an epoch when 
women are largely a factor in the indus- 
trial prosperity of the country, the desire 
to know the practical end to which the 
college-bred woman is able to put her 
superior training, when .thrown upon her 
own resources for a livelihood, is under 
the circumstances natural and conse- 
quently wholesome. 

Results alone justify innovations. To 
define at present the practical outcome 
of higher education, is nevertheless as 
impossible as would be an exhibit of 
philanthropy or religion. To estimate 
the work of the present demands the eyes 
of a future age. As women colleges are 
said to have been founded on the Hellenic 
idea of "culture for culture's sake," — 
authorities have not found it incumbent 
to follow the material fortunes of the 
alumnae. Masculine colleges or universi- 
ties do not anticipate or define the careers 

155 



The American Girl at College 



of the young men they annually set adrift. 
Why then should women be required to 
render an account of their stewardship ? 
logically argue the official heads. But 
public interest in tangible results is per- 
sistent and insatiable. Colleges are now 
beginning to gather data to satisfy this 
prevalent desire. The Vassar and Welles- 
ley Calendars of 1891 and the Souvenir 
of the Mt. Holyoke Semi-Centennial throw 
interesting light upon the varied pursuits 
in which their alumnae have found practi- 
cal activity. Smith, Harvard Annex, and 
Bryn Mawr have no record, nor has any 
been kept by the co-educational institu- 
tions. Nevertheless, all are more or less 
rich in individual recollection of excep- 
tional careers. The evidence that higher 
education has elevated and broadened the 
opportunity and raised the monetary value 
of women in the first field in which she 
found a marketable outlet for her intellect 
is conclusive. Teaching with increasing 
equipment and ripening sense of responsi- 
bility retains its hold on college women. 
One-fourth of the women who go to col- 

156 



Practical Outcome 



lege go with teaching as the end in view. 
In keeping with the growth of colleges, 
preparatory schools have multipUed, until 
now there is scarcely a town of importance 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, that has 
not a preparatory school in the keeping 
of a B. A, or an A. M. of Vassar, Welles- 
ley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, the Annex or 
some co-educational university. The in- 
sufficient preparation of students who 
applied for admission retarded the growth 
of women's colleges. So few in num- 
ber and incompetent in faculty were girls' 
preparatory schools, that Vassar and 
Wellesley were forced for some years to 
sustain academic or preparatory depart- 
ments. This is now obviated, thanks to 
the number of skilled women sent forth 
yearly by the colleges to successfully con- 
duct private enterprises, the certificates 
of many of which are recognised by Har- 
vard and other leading colleges. In higher 
and special fields of instruction, in many 
conservative seats of learning, the college 
woman now stands on equal footing men- 
tally and financially with the-men profes- 

157 



The American Girl at College 



sors. It was not so much intolerance of 
sex as want of higher training that de- 
barred her formerly. Previous to the, 
spread of higher education would such rec- 
ognition have been possible as has been 
given to Miss Abby Leach, Vassar's 
Greek professor, recently invited to a 
chair in the Leland Stanford, Jr. Uni- 
versity; to Miss Thomas, Dean of the Fac- 
ulty and Professor of English at Bryn 
Mawr; or to the brilliant Mrs. Palmer, 
Dean and Professor of English History in 
the University of Chicago ? 

Teaching is to woman what the practice 
of law is to man,— a stepping-stone to 
broadening opportunity. Hardly a wo- 
man, regardless of the source or the man- 
ner of her intellectual training, has made 
a distinctive place for herself in the world 
of thought or action without a previous 
apprenticeship in the pedagogic chair. 
Most of the women experts in the United 
States Government service, and their 
number grows apace, came from the 
teacher's desk. Current literature and 
the book-making world are constantly 

158 



Practical Outcome 



enriched by college women, especially in 
educational matters within their line of 
work. So advanced is much of this re- 
search that it comes more properly under 
higher specialised work. Consider for 
instance the literary contributions of Mrs. 
Ellen Richards, a Vassar M. A., whose 
effective work in the Woman's Laboratory 
of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology tends to revolutionise modern 
housekeeping by familiarising women 
with nature's law. In 1875 her first work 
appeared, "The Analysis of Samarskite," 
followed by " The Occurrence of Boracic 
Acid in Mineral Waters," "Chemical 
Composition of some Mineral Species from 
Newburyport Lead Ore;" (with M. S. 
Cheney) " A New and Ready Method for 
the Estimation of Nickel in Pyrrotites and 
Mattes;" (with Alice F. Palmer) "Notes on 
Antimony Tannate," "Naphtha Process 
for Cleaning Wool," " On the Adulteration 
of Groceries," "The Chemistry of Cook- 
ing and Cleaning," " A Manual for House- 
keepers," " Lessons on Minerals," " Notes 
on Some Reactions of Titanium, " " Science 

159 



The American Girl at College 



in Common Schools," "Notes on the De- 
termination of Carbon Monoxide," " Food 
Materials and their Adulteration;" (with 
Marion Talbot) "Home Sanitation." 

Not less noticeable are the contributions 
of Mrs. Christian Ladd Franklin: "The 
Pascal Hexagram," "On De Morgan's 
Extension of the Algebraic Processes," 
" Note on Segments Made on Lines by 
Curves," " A Method for the Experimental 
Determination of the Horopter," "On 
Some Characteristics of Symbolic Logic," 
" Some Proposed Reforms in Common 
Logic," "On Natural Kinds," "On the 
Algebra of Logic" by Members of the 
Johns Hopkins University, 1883; articles 
and reviews in the Nation^ the Critic and 
Science. 

"Birds through an Opera Glass," by 
Florence Marion, " The Philosophical 
Studies" of Julia Gulliver, and the ad- 
mirable translations of Henrietta Lilly, 
enrich Smith's literary contributions. 
Much of the philosophical work issued by 
Johns Hopkins University was the trans- 
lation of Miss Lilly. The contributions 

160 



Practical Outcome 



to fiction are large and varied. Mrs. J. 
Wells Champney's "Three Vassar Girls 
Abroad" leads in popularity, followed by 
several novels, eighteen children's stories 
and some seventy magazine articles. Miss 
Katherine Bates and Miss Vida Scudder 
of Wellesley are familiar to readers of 
current periodicals. Journalism opens a 
profitable field which college women are 
rapidly cultivating. The business mana- 
ger and sub-editor of Kate Field's " Wash- 
ington" are Vassar girls. From Vassar 
also came Miss Caroline Gray Tingle and 
Miss Leonard, who previously conducted a 
country weekly in a little New Jersey town 
for five years and made money ; the editor 
of the " Ohio W. C. T. U. Messenger" and 
the assistant editors on the work of the 
Century and Webster revised dictionaries. 
Wellesley and Harvard Annex girls are 
active as editors, proof-readers and trans- 
lators in leading publishing houses of New 
York, Boston and Philadelphia. As yet, 
however, journalism more strongly attracts 
women of co-educational training. Not 
the least successful are Eliza Archard 

i6i 



The American Girl at College 



Conner, of Antioch College, scientific and 
agricultural editor of the American Press 
Association; Eliza Putnam Heaton of the 
Boston University, editor of the Sunday 
Recoi'der; Elizabeth Jordan of the Wiscon- 
sin University, editor of "The Woman's 
Page" of the New York World^ or Helen 
Watterson Moody of Wooster University, 
who as the " Woman About Town" made 
in the New York Evejiijig Sun., less than 
three years ago, a distinctive journal- 
istic innovation. Foreign missionary 
work continues to draw largely upon col- 
lege women. Vassar and Wellesley send 
equipped women every year to obscure 
regions. The first profession to attract 
the early college women was medicine, 
which grows yearly in popularity. The 
God-given art to soothe and heal is es- 
sentially woman's birthright. It was in 
the natural order of things that the first 
taste of scientific training should send, as 
it continues to do, increasing numbers 
into medicine. As early as 1868 a Vassar 
graduate is found in the medical school, 
and more than twenty of its alumnae are 

162 



Practical Outcome 



now practising physicians in receipt of 
comfortable incomes. Next to teaching, 
medicine receives a large number of Smith 
graduates. The most distinguished, per- 
haps, is Dr. Caroline Hamilton, whose 
skill in surgery is recognised in New 
York, where she was the resident physician 
of the College Settlement until called to 
the practice of surgery in Turkey. Wel- 
lesley also contributes largely to the 
medical profession. One of its graduates 
is a practising physician in charge of a leper 
hospital in India. Ann Arbor and Johns 
Hopkins, together with the Woman's 
Medical Colleges of Philadelphia and New 
York, are constantly being recruited by 
students who have previously won college 
degrees. 

Wellesley sends the first contribution to 
the legal profession in the person of Miss 
Sophia Breckinridge, the daughter of Ken- 
tucky's silver-tongued orator. Miss Breck- 
inridge has been admitted to practise at the 
bar and purposes pursuing the profession. 
Of ten thousand three hundred and ninety 
women students enrolled at present in 

163 



The American Girl at College 



co-educational universities and colleges, 
five hundred and thirty students are in the 
professional departments of these institu- 
tions. To these latter may be added 
seven hundred and ninety-eight women 
students enrolled in the colleges en- 
dowed by the Land Grant of 1862, 
making a total of eleven thousand seven 
hundred and eighteen students enrolled in 
the co-educational universities and col- 
leges in the United States. Training 
schools for nurses, schools of cooking and 
physical culture are attracting later college 
graduates. Being as yet uncrowded fields, 
they afford sure and substantial return 
and wide active scope. Aside from rec- 
ognised professions, various other bread- 
winning avenues welcome the college wo- 
man. Vassar has a dairy farmer, and a 
former editor is now proprietor of King- 
wood Herd of Jersey and preparer of ster- 
ilised milk. Wellesley glories in a B. A. 
who pre-empted and received a patent for a 
quarter-section of land in Florida, while 
another graduate is a bank cashier. 

But not to all is given a profession, 

164 



Practical Outcome 



nor are all called to the wage earning 
world. Of what avail is this superior 
training to the vast numbers destined 
to be "breeders of sinners," or who in un- 
married bliss are content to put B. A. or 
M. A. after their names? 

Among the young women who sought 
Harvard's classic shades in the embryo 
days of the Annex was a Knickerbocker, 
the prospective heiress of half a million. 
As her purpose in seeking higher educa- 
tion, unlike that of her companions, could 
scarcely be objectively practical, and as 
fashionable life and superior mental train- 
ing were not then on as familiar terms as 
they are likely to be, the motive of this 
apparently frivolous girl was variously 
conjectured. Without developing any 
special predilection for study, she was a 
conscientious student, whose maid and 
coupe always waited her command and 
whose toilets were the marvel and the envy 
of her poor, plodding and often threadbare 
companions. Her eccentricities as they 
were termed culminated one day in her 
quitting the Annex with a Harvard certifi- 

165 



The American Girl at College 



cate. The young M. A. then returned to 
society, for a couple of seasons. Subse- 
quently her disciplined mind discovered 
financial breakers ahead, threatening the 
demolition of her prospective fortune. 
Then her higher education became of use. 
If the worst came to the worse could she 
not earn her own living ? Was there no 
market for her exceptional knowledge of 
the classics? Shadows darkened. Without 
a family consultation, she sought several 
publishing houses in quest of employment. 
None were eager to utilise her superior 
knowledge. Finally a well-known firm 
dismissed her with the equivocal request 
for her address in case there was a 
vacancy. Spring came. The summer 
home on the Hudson filled up with the 
usual quota of guests. In the midst of 
the summer gayety, six months after her 
application was filed, she received a letter 
from the publisher requesting her to call. 
She went to the city to learn that she could 
have a position at a salary of fifty dollars 
a month. In a dingy office on lower 
Broadway the monotonous grind of the 

1 66 



Practical Outcome 



working- woman's world opened up to this 
daughter of luxury. On a high stool from 
eight o'clock in the morning until five in 
the evening she sat dissecting Greek and 
Latin roots, to have the door opened on 
her return home by a butler in livery and 
her toilet prepared by a maid. Foolish 
mother-pride concealed from servants and 
friends the cause of her daily absence, 
until, irritated by the duality of the farce, 
she explained herself that she had joined 
the labouring class. Shortly the crisis 
came: her father died, bank failures en- 
sued, and the heiress of half a million had 
but ten thousand dollars in government 
bonds. Brown-stone house, footman, 
maid and livery vanished, and the fifty- 
dollar drudge was relegated to a board- 
ing-house, rejoicing in the wisdom that 
had directed her to garner that which is 
above fluctuating fortune, a solid rounded 
education. She advanced steadily until 
to-day she is sub-editor of a classical 
dictionary, with an enviable salary and 
a reputation for clear-headed, con- 
scientious, irreproachable work. Grate- 

167 



The American Girl at College 



ful to a parent who made possible the 
intellectual advantages she enjoyed in 
her girlhood, she is educating his son at 
college, trusting to give him through her 
own earnings the education that would 
have been his, had his father's life and 
fortune been spared. To achieve this . 
noble end, a lover has been sacrificed by 
this eccentric maiden Master of Arts. 

That that " which in woman is noble 
and tender can never be injured by genu- 
ine true education and its resultant, the 
highest culture known" — finds subtle, in- 
tangible confirmation in the influence of 
the home-keeping, college-bred woman. 
"The chief educational influence of the 
family is nurture. The fact that the 
special vocation of woman, in so far as 
determined by sex, involves this special 
feature of nurture, furnishes a significant 
point to be considered in the discussion 
of her higher education," says Dr. W. T. 
Harris in a vigorous preface. " It indi- 
cates that as governments come to be lesss 
a matter of abstract justice and more a I 
matter of providing for the people that \ 

i6S \ 



Practical Outcome 



which will enhance their capacity for self- 
activity, woman's aid will be more and 
more needed in political affairs. Woman 
is by nature adapted to provide nurture 
for the weaklings of a community in the 
shape of educational and other restraining 
and directing influence, and there awaits 
her a very important field of activity in 
the phase of municipal government." 

" The trend of the present social evolu- 
tion proclaims," concludes this same emi- 
nent and far-seeing educator, " that the 
equal education of woman with man is 
certain to prevail in the future. " Respon- 
sive to the social problems confronting the 
age, political economy, domestic science, 
sanitation — sociology in all its phases as 
theorised at colleges begins already to 
find a practical outlet in the individual no 
less than in the concerted action of college 
women irrespective of their positions as 
bread-winners, v/ives, mothers or property 
holders. The interest fostered in sani- 
tary, and sociological science and political 
economy by local college clubs culminated 
four years ago in a philanthropic experi- 

169 



The American Girl at College 



ment in New York City, known as the 
College Settlement. The movement orig- 
inated with three Smith girls, Miss Vida 
Scudder, Miss Jean Fine, and Miss Helen 
Rand, whose interest and enthusiasm were 
roused by a visit to Toynbee Hall in Lon- 
don. Believing that only by the contact of 
one human life with another can perma- 
nent and satisfactory influence be exerted, 
the college alumnae rented a house in the 
most densely populated tenement quar- 
ter of the metropolis. Assisted by four 
other college girls, the original trio made 
there such a home as is possible to seven 
refined and active women inspired by sym- 
pathy and kindness. Into their family life 
they invited their neighbours and friends, 
bidding them enjoy what years of opportu- 
nity for study and culture had given these 
women and made them capable of impart- 
ing to starved, stunted minds. The land- 
lord of a vacant roomy old-fashioned man- 
sion in Rivington Street responded to the 
college women's enthusiasm and put the 
quarters into thorough sanitary and habi- 
table condition, making it possible for 

170 



Practical Outcome 



them in the midst of dirt and squalor to 
establish a home healthy and pleasant, de- 
spite unfavourable surroundings. Here 
resident college women live their lives as 
elsewhere and show by their activity how 
high a value they place on industry. The 
settlement is so ordered that it can accom- 
modate itself to permanent and transient 
residents. A certain number of its inmates, 
sufficient to insure the stability of whatever 
scheme may be undertaken, pledge them- 
selves to become boarders for at least a 
year; others may come for a few weeks 
only. The most practical means of secur- 
ing a hold on their neighbours so far, has 
been the organisation of clubs for the girls 
and boys. The aim of this work is to exert 
a quiet but wholesome influence upon the 
neighbourhood that will raise the moral 
and social standard and bring about true 
practical social democracy. There is no 
charitable work in the sense of almsgiving, 
nor a suggestion of the '-'Mission," yet 
the action of the settlement in establish- 
ing free libraries, clubs for children and 
young people in which instruction is given 

171 



The American Girl at College 



to help them to opportunities for increased 
wages, social reunions for the mothers, 
saving banks, and guilds for self-improve- 
ment exerts a valuable influence for good. 
The whole work is quietly conducted. 
The clever educated women and the neigh- 
bours alike shun publicity. Indeed the 
only serious drawback the movement has 
met was the injudicious publicity given to 
it by the daily and periodic press, which 
thoughtlessly revealed names and inci- 
dents in the lives of many who had learned 
to give the settlement women their confi- 
dence, recognising in them no disparity of 
social condition but fellow-workers in the 
daily struggle for better living. The 
College Settlement is largely sustained by 
an Association made up of chapters from 
various colleges. Mrs. Frances Folsom 
Cleveland, wife of the President of the 
United States, is president of the chapter 
established at Wells College. So progres- 
sive is the work in Rivington Street that 
a second house has been rented this year 
and eighty college women have filed appli- 
cations to become resident workers in the 

172 



Practical Outcome 



Settlement. The men of the neighbour- 
hood, mostly husbands of the women who 
belong to the Home Improvement Club, 
have requested that they be permitted to 
organise a club, while older boys now 
delight to assist the young women in at- 
tracting their younger companions to the 
library and clubs of the Settlement. 

Many people of the neighbourhood 
have become shareholders in a co-oper- 
ative dairy about to be opened in the 
vicinity at the instigation of the Univer- 
sity Settlement in charge of university 
men. This movement grew out of a 
young men's guild in the neighbourhood 
and was suggested by the success of the 
College Settlement. Both movements are 
in harmonious and active sympathy. Col- 
lege Settlements are now established at 
Philadelphia and Boston. Hull House, 
in Chicago, an independent social settle- 
ment carrying out the same broad human- 
itarian scheme of work, is largely aided 
in its activities by college women, although 
in no way a college outgrowth. 

The first effort to bring the domestic 

173 



The American Girl at College 



problem, mistress versus maid, to the 
scrutiny of statistics is the work of post- 
graduates of Vassar under the supervision 
of Prof. Lucy M. Salmon of the Historical 
Department. Untried in the mysteries of 
domestic management, these young wo- 
men are endeavouring to secure evidence 
in order to discover where the root of 
the evil lies. Three sets of schedules 
containing direct, practical questions 
were distributed. The first, addressed 
to housekeepers, gives that class an op- 
portunity to state their grievances from 
the standpoint of employers, the second 
furnished the servants a similar outlet 
for their experiences and opinions, while 
the third paper aimed to give full in- 
formation as to how widely and success- 
fully co-operative experiments in house- 
keeping have been attempted. One of 
the most striking conditions of the domes- 
tic service, as revealed by the statistics 
thus collected, in view of the unwilling- 
ness of many to enter it, is the fact that 
the wages received are relatively and 
sometimes absolutely higher than the 
174 



Practical Outcome 



average wages received in other occupa- 
tions open to women. 

Many attempts have been made by 
sanitary cranks to induce people to eat 
what was good for them ; there have been 
many schemes on the part of business men 
to utilise some hygienic theory for their 
own profit; but to strive to educate the 
people to like what is good and nutritious 
by serving it day by day was unknown 
until college women undertook the work 
in Boston. 

A veritable scientific College Settlement 
is the New England Kitchen. The cook- 
ing is done on scientific principles, and in 
sight of the customers, as an object-lesson 
in methods and cleanliness. It is also a 
sort of household experiment station, 
where new apparatus may be tested and 
frank opinions expressed ; a place to 
which many perplexed housekeepers bring 
their problems, to find comfort in their 
despair if not relief in their trouble. The 
Kitchen was started primarily in order to 
learn how the people really live, and to dis- 
cover their peculiar tastes and prejudices. 

175 



The American Girl at College 



As a means to this end it was determined to 
study the methods of cooking two things 
■ — the cheaper cuts of beef and cereals — 
and to offer for sale the results of the ex- 
periments, the proof of this pudding being 
the selling. The successful issue was not 
brought about without the expenditure 
of time and labour. Each dish was per- 
fected only by the co-operation of the 
whole neighbourhood, after repeated tast- 
ing and commenting, so that finally what 
might be called a cosmopolitan flavour 
was obtained. For eight months, at the 
noon hour, processions of pitchers, pails 
and cans brought by men, women and 
children of varied nationalities for pea 
soup or beef stew demonstrated that really 
good food is appreciated and will be pur- 
chased. May not the college woman have 
discovered at last a possible rival to the 
saloon? When food can be as easily ob- 
tained as drink, may not men take food 
in preference ? The training of the college 
women is discernible in this experiment. 
No mere enthusiasm could have sustained 
the patience required to persevere until 

176 



Practical Outcome 



success was attained. The ease with 
which these ladies disseminate practical 
knowledge over the business counter, the 
readiness of the people to learn when once 
they are convinced that business and not 
charity rules the establishment, prove that 
this is one way at least to reach the 
masses. The people of our cities best 
worth helping are the most self-respecting 
and least willing to receive anything in the 
way of charity. A duplicate of the New 
England Kitchen has been established 
during the past year in New York City. 

Miss K. B. Davis, a Vassar girl of '92, 
under the supervision of Mr. John Boyd 
Thatcher of the State Board of New 
York, exhibits at the World's Fair the 
possibilities of domestic economy as a 
science rather than a trade, in the shape of 
a workingman's cottage equipped with 
home comforts- in keeping with the wages 
•of the average labourer or mechanic who 
has a wife and two children to support. Do- 
mestic science as taught by Mrs. Ellen H. 
Richards at the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology and embodied in the New 

177 



The American Girl at College 



England Kitchen movement was intro- 
duced at Wellesley College two years ago 
under the instruction of Miss Marion Tal- 
bot. So effective was the work, that 
Miss Talbot was summoned to an assist- 
ant professorship of sanitation at the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. Domestic science has 
also been introduced into the State Uni- 
versity of Nebraska. Not until its place 
in the college curriculum is on a level with 
the other sciences, summing up as it does 
all the science teaching of the course — 
chemistry, p'ftysics, physiology, biology 
and bacteriology — will the graduate be ful- 
ly equipped to effectively grasp the variety 
of practical work opening up so auspici- 
ously under the present social conditions. 
The difference between domestic work as a 
trade and domestic work as a science finds 
conclusive demonstration in the sched- 
ule of study, which provides four hours' 
practical work and two lectures weekly on 
the following subjects: 

I. The house and its foundations and 
surroundings from a sanitary as well as 
from an architectural standpoint. 

178 



Practical Outcome 



2. The mechanical apparatus of the 
house, heating, lighting, ventilation, 
drainage, etc., including methods of test- 
ing their efficiency. 

3. Furnishing and general care of a 
house, including what might be called 
applied physiology, chemistry of food, 
nutrition, and the chemistry of clean- 
ing. 

4. Food and clothing of a family. 

■ 5. Relation of domestic service to the 
general question of labour, with a discus- 
sion of present conditions and proposed 
reforms. 

The practical work includes: — 

1. Visits of inspection, accompanied by 
the instructor, to houses in process of 
construction, of good and bad types, both 
old and new. 

2. Visits to homes where the house- 
keeper has put in practice some or all of 
the theories of modern sanitary and 
economic living. 

3. Conferences with successful and 
progressive housekeepers. 

4. Practical work and original inves- 

179 



The American Girl at College 



tigation in the laboratory of sanitary 
chemistry. 

Classes are divided into sections. Each 
section has a topic assigned, on which a 
report is presented monthly, and a thesis 
written at the end of the year, based on 
the results of observation, investigation, 
and the reading of current scientific liter- 
ature. From time to time the best of 
these are given to the general body of 
students through society chapters or the 
college papers. 

" Think you," asks Mrs. Ellen H. Rich- 
ards, one of the most advanced woman 
scientists of America, " that young women 
after a year of this study will be less fitted 
to manage a modern household than one 
who has made beds, washed dishes, or 
learned darning all through her college 
course?" 

i8o 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGIATE 

' ALUMNA 

NO more vital working force has 
been evolved from the educational 
movement of the last decade than the 
Association of Collegiate Alumnae. It 
embodies much of the varied, suggestive 
and practical results of higher education. 
Organised in 1882 to unite alumnae of 
different institutions for practical educa- 
tional work, this earnest, progressive band 
of women has succeeded not only in 
broadening the scope and raising the 
scholastic standard of colleges, but has 
consolidated and vitalised the aim and the 
influence of college-bred women at home 
and abroad. 

The idea originated in the brain of a 
clever non-collegiate woman, Mrs. Dr. 

181 



The American Girl at Collesfe 



Talbot of Boston, whose interest in educa- 
tional matters was then stimulated by her 
daughter, Miss Marion Talbot, who had 
just taken a degree at the Boston Univer- 
sity. Responsive to the suggestion that 
great advantages would accrue to higher 
education through personal sympathy and 
identity of aim among women imbued with 
the true college spirit, representatives of 
nine colleges joined in devising the ini- 
tial plan of organisation. At the outset 
there was a division of sentiment as to 
whether the association should embrace 
all women's colleges or limit its member- 
ship to a definite scholastic standard. 
Though the conservative element was in 
the minority at first, the association at 
length unanimously yielded to the wisdom 
of a restricted standard of admission ; and 
to this is largely due the recognition it 
has received as a strong progressive yet 
conservative organisation with high aims 
and unselfish devotion to the best interests 
of women. The prejudice against the 
advanced education of women prevalent 
when Vassar opened its doors in 1865 had 



I«2 



The Association of Collegiate Alumnai 



given way, and the time was ripe for the 
eonsolidation of the women who had de- 
stroyed it. 

Convinced by the official reports of the 
National Bureau of Education of the 
impossibility, for political and other rea- 
sons, to discriminate between the claims 
of universities and colleges properly 
so called, the association early resolved 
to state the precise terms of its member- 
ship. This step was necessary because a 
strong motive toward striving for the best 
education was lacking, owing to the fact 
that a degree won by patient and persistent 
study at one of the better colleges had 
then no more publicly recognised worth 
than one conferred with a flourish by some 
self-dubbed university of questionable 
grade. 

Briefly the terms of membership are: 

1. The Faculty of a college applying 
for admission to the association must not 
be called upon to give instruction in pre- 
paratory studies. 

2. The requirements for admission to 
such colleges must be equal to those 

183 



The American Girl at College 



adopted by the colleges already bqjonging 
to the association. (It is assumed that 
the colleges admitted require in their 
entrance examinations an equivalent to 
the English studies agreed upon by the 
commission of colleges in New England. 
The classical and mathematical require- 
ments are similar to those adopted by the 
men's colleges of the better grade.) 

3. The college must have conferred de- 
grees in arts, philosophy, science or liter- 
ature on twenty-five women prior to its 
application for admission. 

The Harvard Annex conferring no de- 
grees but only a certified statement of 
studies, equivalent to a Harvard College 
degree, is debarred from membership, but 
as it is now only a question of finance 
that retards its consolidation with Har- 
vard College proper, the time is near at 
hand when the Annex will be eligible. 
Mount Holyoke dispenses this year with 
its preparatory department, as do other 
colleges solicitous to be recognised by 
the association. Any woman holding a 
degree in arts, philosophy, literature or 

184 



The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 



science conferred by any college or scien- 
tific school belonging to the association 
is entitled to individual membership. 
Fifteen institutions are enrolled at pres- 
ent : Boston University, Bryn Mawr Col- 
lege, University of California, Cornell 
University, University of Kansas, Insti- 
tute of Technology, University of Michi- 
gan, Northwestern University, Oberlin 
College, Smith College, Syracuse Univer- 
sity, Vassar College, Wellesley College, 
Wesleyan University and the University 
of Wisconsin. The membership includes 
fourteen hundred and fifty-eight women 
representing thirty-seven of the United 
States and seven foreign countries. This 
number by no means includes all the 
alumna of the constituent colleges en- 
rolled in the association. One hundred 
and seventy-five of the present mem- 
bership, fifty-five of whom are married, 
have received Master's or Doctor's de- 
grees, while thirty-one have held fellow- 
ships. 

The organisation of the association, 
crystallising as it now does so many forms 

185 



The American Girl at College 



of work, is no less refreshing than sug- 
gestive. 

The officers of the association, subject 
to yearly change, are representatives of 
the various colleges enrolled. The regu- 
lar meetings are held each autumn in 
various centres of local and educational 
activity. Thirteen branch associations 
subject to their own by-laws have been 
established in New York, Boston, Wash- 
ington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, 
Minnesota, Indiana, California, and cen- 
tral and western New York. The 
branches meet four times a year. Each 
State has its Director, who convenes its 
forces from time to time. The efficiency 
of the association was early demonstrated 
by the vigorous and comprehensive man- 
ner in which it set out to investigate the 
most vital matter raised in relation to the 
higher education of women : Does such 
education tend to injure their health ? 
The medical profession from the outset of 
the experiment had constantly sounded a 
note of warning and alarm, which awak- 
ened fears in the minds of prudent parents 

i86 



The Association of Collegiate Alumnse 



and restrained the college movement 
among women to narrower limits than 
natural inclination prompted. Facts had 
not been gathered in sufficient numbers 
to warrant positive statements, yet some 
of the most influential of the profession 
did not hesitate to base an adverse 
argument upon the limited testimony of 
their individual note-books. The associ- 
ation recognised its opportunity to bring 
ampler testimony than could be secured 
otherwise, counting as it did among its 
members representatives of so many in- 
stitutions. The usual programme of 
committee work was adopted, and an in- 
vestigation begun which resulted in 
securing detailed evidence from nearly 
seven hundred and fifty college women, 
graduates of at least two years' standing, 
a number which at the time represented 
more than one-half of the women who had 
received degrees from the higher colleges. 
To guard against the charge of unfair- 
ness, the association placed its accumula- 
tion of facts in charge of the Massachu- 
setts Bureau of Labour Statistics which 

187 



The American Girl at College 



through the courtesy of its chief, Colonel 
Carroll D. Wright, agreed to do the work 
of compilation. So strong was the evi- 
dence in favour of the beneficial results of 
a college life that it settled completely the 
doubts of those investigating, and led them 
to continue their advocacy of a higher 
education without misgivings as to its 
physical consequences. This admirable 
work, which elicited the praise of the chief 
of the Bureau of Labour Statistics, was 
largely due to the executive force and 
liberal scholarship of Mrs. Annie Howes 
Barns, who has been prominently identi- 
fied with the association since its organi- 
sation. This investigation with regard to 
the health of college women naturally led 
to the introduction of the scientific phys- 
ical training, conducted now in all our 
colleges. The chief means adopted to 
bring members at large into closer union 
are the publication and distribution of 
papers prepared by members of the vari- 
ous committees, which embrace Bureau of 
Collegiate Information, Endowment of 
Colleges, Withdrawals from College, Ad- 



The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 



mission of Colleges, Educational Progress, 
Collegiate Administration, Study of the 
Wage Question, Study of the Develop- 
ment of Children and a Bureau of Occu- 
pations. 

Last year seven papers covering one 
hundred and thirty-nine pages and coming 
under these various heads were issued to 
the number of eleven thousand four hun- 
dred copies. Branches also co-operated 
to secure publication in the current press 
of items relating to higher education of 
women. 

To the establishment of home and for- 
eign fellowships the association has given 
an impetus which has resulted in the in- 
crease of fellowships in various colleges 
of the association. The movement in 
this direction was stimulated by the fact 
that in recent years the opponents of 
higher education, having reluctantly yield- 
ed the right to undergraduate instruction, 
have concentrated their forces against the 
opportunity for advanced study. The for- 
eign fellowship offered by the Women's 
Education Association of Boston and the 

i8g 



The American Girl at College 



scholarship of Modern Languages in the 
American Home School in Berlin both 
stipulate that the applicant must be a 
graduate of colleges enrolled in the colle- 
giate association. Similar recognition of 
the efficacy of its standard is given b)'' 
Oxford, which opens its honour examina- 
tions without further conditions to Qfrad- 
uates of colleges included in the Associa- 
tion of Collegiate Alumnae. 

Interesting are the methods and results 
of the Bureau of Occupations. To make 
known to as many people as possible that 
a Bureau exists, through which may be 
found college women who are prepared to 
act as teachers, librarians, laboratory as- 
sistants, etc., fourteen hundred circulars 
were sent out to principals of schools 
which employed women as teachers, and 
whose general standing made it probable 
that fair salaries would be assured. Li- 
brarians and art schools were also notified. 
The greatest demand, in response, was 
for teachers, especially for private schools 
in the vicinity of Philadelphia, while ap- 
plications have been received from Bal- 

190 



The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 



timore, Scranton, Reading, Brooklyn, 
Rochester, Minneapolis, Kalamazoo, New 
York, St. Louis, California, Iowa and 
Nebraska. Various salaries were offered 
and specific requirements often empha- 
sised. A flourishing academy offered 
sixty dollars a school month for a lady 
principal who must be a college graduate, 
experienced teacher, thoroughly prepared 
to conduct classes in German and higher 
English branches! 

A well-known Teachers' Bureau applied 
for a college woman to take a position in 
an educational publishing house. The 
best position in point of salary, two 
thousand dollars per annum, was offered 
by an insurance company for a private 
secretary of high attainments in stenog- 
raphy and higher mathematics. One 
hundred applications for positions are now 
on the roll of the Bureau. Not the least 
important work undertaken by the associ- 
ation is the wage question as it affects 
educated women as factors in industrial 
competition. The sentiment and the ef- 
forts of the Association in this direction 

191 



The American Girl at College 



are comprehensively expressed in Dr. 
Walker's chapter on "Woman's Wages": 

" Let gifted women continue, as in the 
past, to appeal for public respect and 
sympathy for their sisters in their work ; 
let the schools teach that public opinion 
may powerfully affect wages and that 
nothing which depends on human volition 
is ' inexorable' : let the statistics of wo- 
men's wages be carefully gathered and 
persistently held up to view. Efforts like 
these will not fail to strengthen and sup- 
port woman in her resort to the market, 
thus enabling her the better to realise the 
highest wages the existing state of indus- 
try will allow." 

The expenditures involved in the direct 
work of the association are small in pro- 
portion to its scope. A nominal yearly 
fee paid by each member defrays the cost 
of printing and postage ; the expenses of 
meetings are reduced to the minimum 
through the energy of local committees, 
and the voluntary contributions of time 
and money have thus far met other needs 
Nearly every member is also a contributor 

192 



The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 



to special alumnae work for her own col- 
lege ; and various branches raise and dis- 
burse funds according to plans of their 
own devising. Boston and New York have 
given much aid to the college settlement, 
and the publication by the former of the 
treatise on " Home Sanitation" opened 
up a new line of work. The Woman's 
University Club of the metropolis owes its 
origin to members of the New York 
Branch ; Philadelphia has organised a 
Teachers' Bureau, and Washington main- 
tains courses of lectures, while other 
branches have engaged in social and phil- 
anthropic work. The business routine of 
all meetings finds happy diversion in a 
round of teas, lunches, receptions and 
excursion parties, which promote personal 
acquaintance among the members and 
their friends. Including as it does much 
of the grace as well as the intellect of 
the best American womanhood, the so- 
cial affairs of the Association have a 
distinctive and delightful atmosphere. 
Names familiar to many American house- 
holds are found in its Register. Much of 

193 



The American Girl at College 



its prosperity is due to the broad and lib- 
eral counsel of Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, 
Miss Florence M. Gushing, Mrs. Annie 
Howes Barns, Mrs. Alice Freeman Pal- 
mer, Miss Lucy M. Salmon and Mrs. Helen 
Hiscock Backus, supplemented by such 
progressive educators and active workers 
as Miss Marion Talbot, the able secretary, 
Miss Martha Garey Thomas, Ghristine 
Ladd Franklin, Jane Bancroft, Frances E. 
Willard, Sarah Dix Hamlin, Heloise E. 
Hersey, May Wright Sewall, Vida D. 
Scudder, Helen Dawes Brown, Martha 
Foote Grow, Eleanor Louise Lord, and 
Elizabeth Deering Hanscom. 

" To see near things as comprehen- 
sively as if afar they took their point of 
sight," is the gift of the poet. Yet in the 
light of the facts presented in these pages, 
it requires no poet's vision to perceive or 
comprehend, that the steps already taken 
will never be retraced by the American 
girl at college, 

194 

THE END 



